Doom now runs on a vape, and yes, someone put it on a calculator too
If there’s one tech tradition that never dies, it’s finding new, ridiculous places to run Doom. The classic shooter has already blasted its way onto fridges, oscilloscopes, power supplies, and even a digital pregnancy test. The latest additions to that hall of fame: a scientific Casio calculator and, unbelievably, an electronic vape.
The calculator port is a nostalgic throwback, running natively on a scientific model thanks to some clever modding. It’s become a rite of passage in tinkerer circles, where entire communities trade calculator hacks, from Minecraft-inspired mods to NES emulators. For students, it turns an ordinary pocket calculator into a surprisingly capable little game device—no phone required.
The real spectacle, though, is the vape. A modder has managed to stream live Doom gameplay to the Aspire PIXO, a budget-friendly e-cigarette that sells for around €30. While the game isn’t running natively on the device (yet), custom firmware and a USB connection let the PIXO’s tiny 323 × 173 LCD display show the action in real time. It’s as impractical as it is hilarious—exactly the kind of engineering flex that keeps the Doom-on-everything phenomenon alive.
Under the hood, the PIXO isn’t as underpowered as you might think. Its key specs include:
– Puxa PY32F403XC ARM microcontroller
– 64 KB of RAM
– 256 KB of onboard flash
– Additional 16 MB SPI flash chip
– 323 × 173 pixel LCD
To make the streaming work, the developer released firmware backups and a simple browser-based tool called VapeCloudStreamer that handles the screen sharing. That’s already impressive, but the community is buzzing about whether a stripped-down, native port could be possible down the road. The display is working—so why not the rest?
Is any of this practical? Not at all. Is it endlessly entertaining and a perfect example of creative hardware hacking? Absolutely. If a gadget has a screen and a programmable chip, someone, somewhere, is probably already trying to run Doom on it.
