Husqvarna has announced that an April 2024 update will allow users to play the Doom (classic) video game on their robotic lawn mowers.
Doom will only be playable on Husqvarna’s NERA series robotic mowers, via its onboard display and control knob.
Press the Start button to run forward, turn the control knob for left and right, and press the control knob to fire.
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Here’s what they say:
In what we call “one hell of an update”, the software update will be released for download via the Husqvarna Automower Connect App. The decision to release the game to product owners follows the amazing response DOOM x Husqvarna robotic lawnmowers had at the gaming event DreamHack Winter 2023.
Husqvarna’s website suggests it will only be available in European markets.
There’s one more catch – it will only be playable during a limited time period, from April 9 thru September 9, 2024.
I had to check the calendar for this one. It’s March 1st, not April 1st. This looks legit.
Here’s their video announcement:
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Peter
Not sure what to think about that but I played countless hours of Doom.
Richard
It’s a bit of a funny headline, but sometimes these things can have serious implications.
Take a look at John Deere and the rhetoric around right to repair
https://web.archive.org/web/20240106181017/https://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/
> Because copyright-marauding farmers are very busy and need to multitask by simultaneously copying Taylor Swift’s 1989 and harvesting corn? (I’m guessing, because John Deere’s lawyers never explained why anyone would pirate music on a tractor, only that it could happen.)
Now, since this is a limited time thing it seems more like they are not saying you can install Linux and have total ownership over the software side of the machine, but it’s a far cry from John Deere actively fighting any non-sanctioned use.
Scott K
Not sure I totally understand this comment. It seems like Stu is sharing that Husqvarna is making an update available that will allow owners to play Doom on this mower’s screen for a limited time as a fun “why not?” thing. This is very different than the right to repair argument that John Deere has fought for a while (which will hopefully be overturned). They earned a lot of ill will from their efforts to strong arm farmers into overpaying for diagnostics and repairs.
Richard
Sorry, I think I connected some dots without bringing people along.
Usually “can play doom on X” is a common way people will demonstrate that they jailbroke or rooted a piece of hardware. This is another article that just came out about a person getting doom running on a toothbrush https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/before-you-brush-your-teeth-tonight-remember-to-install-doom-on-your-electric-toothbrush.
Most everyone around here is asking “but why”. And my guess was that it’s related to possibly some bigger announcement like a commitment to an open hardware software. Though maybe it’s just wishful thinking on my part. So that’s how I related those two things in my mind. Which I now see is a bit of a stretch and wishful thinking. Either way I think it’s a fun thing to do.
Scott K
An open and accessible system would be very novel – but unlikely. There isn’t much competition yet, so I find it hard to believe that Husqvarna would make it easier for others to get in early. There are also definitely liability issues in allowing users to easily modify the programming since this is has spinning blades. Repairability is different, though, and it would be great if they made it simple to swap out parts. I have one of the cheaper Roombas and they make a number of user replaceable parts available.
Doresoom
I agree with Scott on this one, there’s zero chance Husqvarna is going make it open source and open themselves up to the liability of someone bypassing safety controls in mower software.
MFC
So Doom has been the program to try and install on every bit of tech out there since calculators could play it. I’ve seen countless posts over the last dozen years about Doom on my toothbrush, or doom on an atm.
I think some nerds at Husqvarna thought this would be a good gag to go along with the history of Doom being played on everything.
Nate
This has to be the result of an internal hacking effort at Husqvarna(as in programmer play rather than nefarious activity). The Doom code was open sourced by iD software in 1997. Since then, it’s a bit of programmer bragging rights to get things like old cell phones (flip phones), toasters, home automation systems, cars, and now lawn mowers to run Doom. “I got my lawn mower running doom”. It’s all about programmer bragging rights.
Jared
That makes some sense. I read this and just thought: “What? Why?”
You don’t need a lawnmower to play Doom and that’s not a good platform on which to do it. Seemed like nonsense to me.
Josh R
Scientists figured out that you can make a functioning logic gate powered by crabs (81 of them!)
This means that if you have 16 million crabs and a lot of free time, you can play doom on crabs.
Dustin
There was a guy recently who figured out how many potato batteries it takes to play doom on a graphing calculator
Answer: approx 100lbs
Grokew
It seems like scientists have been playing Too much Terraria…
Robert
Nate, that doesn’t seem quite plausible. But on the other hand, maybe more plausible than this being allowed in Europe, due to the “a distraction from lawn mowing,” given their greater regulatory safety tendencies, and same bureaucrats hate of bloody first person shooters like Doom. Don’t know if still a requirement, but in Germany blood in computer games could not be realistic, so some games skirted that by coloring the blood green.
Nate
To me, It’s 200% plausible that a Husqvarna programmer did it for bragging rights. “I got Doom running on our new lawnmower” is a heck of a brag to fellow geeks. While I find it less plausible (as you assert) that Husqvarna officially sanctioned it, I have some background on why I think that may be the case: dramatically different liability laws in Europe than in the U.S.
I lived in Europe for about 6 years in the early 2000s. While Europe has strong regulation, liability laws are pretty different. In Germany, where I lived, I think something like this could be sold with an appropriate qualification of “don’t play this while cutting the grass. we built a safe lawnmower that can play doom, but it’s not safe when playing doom. You are responsible for safe operation.” A statement like that might well protect them from a liability lawsuit. Courts there generally look at liability from a perspective of “is this in line with what a mature adult who read the manual and understood it would do?” I found it all very refreshing, compared to our very litigious society here.
Nate
“not safe to mow when playing doom.”
Robert
Nate, MM, thanks for the perspectives. Good discussion. My bias was worrying about getting the massively complex software we bought for the government to work. Looking back, in that environment, programmers didn’t seem to want to bring up what would possibly seen as a frivolous mindset (Doom ports), when they were getting beat up about not meeting mission.
MM
I’m with you Nate. When I was in college most of my social circle was Comp Sci majors. Doing things like trying to run old games on hardware not meant for it was exactly the sort of thing that they would do for fun. Another common thing was trying to get hardware to run operating systems it wasn’t intended to, or trying to install as many OSes as possible on a PC. I remember a friend of mine being ecstatic after he managed to get a Playstation to boot OS/2 Warp…which of course is entirely useless, but a fun geeky exercise. Doom was always one of those games people tried to run on things because its hardware requirements are so modest. I recall people running ports of it on Ti graphing calculators years ago. It’s also so iconic, even today there are people who speedrun it. I can absolutely see some programmer doing this for fun & bragging rights.
Saulac
Opened Toolguyd on mobile, the 3 most recent post shown. I thought Toolguyd was hacked.
Peter
😂
John
I agree. Blog looks like AI took over.
Stuart
Beep beep boop?
One image is from the official US CPSC government agency YouTube channel, another from Hart’s official social media posts, and the other from Husqvarna’s official release.
I really didn’t go looking for these, it just happened, each naturally in a row.
Feels more like April 1st.
I’m a bit worried about what stories will land in my lap over the weekend.
TomD
So we have fancy electric chainsaws now, we’re only a few steps away from one that has a digital screen for diagnostics/adjustments, and then we can finally achieve nirvana and run DooM on a chainsaw.
It’s quite likely that one of the chainsaws already has a chip powerful enough to run it, even toothbrushes do: https://www.techradar.com/home/smart-home/doom-can-now-run-on-an-electric-toothbrush-but-should-you-be-worried
Or a pregnancy test: https://www.pcgamer.com/heres-doom-running-on-a-pregnancy-test/
Jason
EGO has a chainsaw with a digital screen and adjustments…
George
A chainsaw you can play Doom on is way, way more on-brand than a lawnmower.
Now if I could watch Braindead/Dead Alive on a lawnmower, that’d be on-theme.
MM
Now if someone could run Doom on a nail gun we’d be all set.
blocky
On that note, how much of a stretch for this run “Lawnmower Man”?
COOLEFX
Wow, blocky, that comment takes me back 33 years ago. My very first job in special effects was on “Lawnmower Man”.
IronWood
Finally!! I think this is all anyone ever really wanted in a mower.
Rcward
Stupid
Joe A
I mean, it sounds stupid and I can’t imagine what the point of it was, but I approve 🤘
Mike
I can’t tell you how disappointed I was to see it’s DOOM playing on a lawnmower controller screen. From the headline, I thought the lawnmowers themselves would running around the yard, pretend-zapping the monsters, maybe even multi-player with other mower-owners. Let’s network those mowers for some real 1990’s old-school action!
Brian M
Warning: Don’t play Doom while holding it on your lap, lawn mower could become a circumciser.
Matthew
this is how the machines become self aware thus ending the world as we know it.
“it all started when some marketing idiot thought he had a great idea. it started with lawn mowers, but then they added more and more until one day the machines decided they had enough of our landscaping slavery.
then the mowers turned on us. Al Borland met his fate with a hedge trimmer. his beard a total loss. he’ll never recover and neither will i ever forget that day. we will avenge him with Tim Taylor as our fearless leader just as the oracle foretold in the prophecy.”
i dont know i kinda got lost there hope someone laughed.