An Icelandic programmer efficiently ran Doom on the European House Company’s OPS-SAT satellite tv for pc, proving that the enduring 1993 shooter can now run not simply all over the place on Earth — however in orbit. ZDNet reviews: Olafur Waage, a senior software program developer from Iceland who now works in Norway, defined at Ubuntu Summit 25.10 how he, a self-described “skilled keyboard typist” and maker of humorous movies, ended up making what is maybe the sport’s most outlandish port but: Doom operating on an actual satellite tv for pc in orbit, the European House Company (ESA) OPS-SAT satellite tv for pc. OPS-SAT, a “flying laboratory” for testing novel onboard computing methods, was geared up with an experimental pc roughly 10 occasions extra highly effective than the norm for spacecraft. Waag defined, “OPS-SAT was the primary of its form, dedicated to demonstrating drastically improved mission management capabilities when satellites can fly extra highly effective onboard computer systems. The purpose was to interrupt the curse of being too risk-averse with multi-million-dollar spacecraft.” (The satellite tv for pc was decommissioned in 2024.) […]
Working Doom in orbit was partly a problem of portability and partly a problem of the restrictions of area {hardware} and mission management. The on-board ARM dual-core Cortex-A9 processor, whereas scorching stuff for area computing {hardware} (which tends to be low-powered and radiation-hardened), was gradual even by Earth-bound requirements. Waage selected Chocolate Doom 2.3, a well-liked open-source model of Doom, for its compatibility with the Ubuntu 18.04 Lengthy Time period Assist (LTS) distro, which was already operating on OPS-SAT. Apart from, Waage famous, “We picked Chocolate Doom 2.3 due to the libraries accessible for 18.04 — that was the final one that will really construct.
Updating software program in orbit is extraordinarily tough, so comparatively little code must be uploaded. As Waage mentioned, “Doom is comparatively simple C with just a few exterior dependencies.” In different phrases, it is simple to port. […] The one signal that Doom was operating in area at first was a lone log entry. So, the workforce used the satellite tv for pc’s digital camera to snap real-time pictures of the Earth, then swapped Doom’s Mars skybox for precise satellite tv for pc images. “The thought was to take a screenshot from the satellite tv for pc and use that because the sky, all rendered in software program utilizing the sport’s restricted 256-color palette,” defined Waage. Even this posed sudden difficulties: “Making an attempt to attract all of those stunning colours with these colours,” mentioned Waage, “it is most likely not going to work proper off. However we tried gradient assessments, NASA demo images. It took fairly a little bit of tweaking.” Finally, as a substitute of a fantasy Mars because the sky background, they obtained a handsome, actual Earth within the recreation’s sky. The sport itself ran flawlessly. In spite of everything, Waage mentioned, “It ran superbly. It is on Ubuntu.”
