Craziest/most "exotic" devices able to run Linux?

GustavoM@lemmy.world to Linux@lemmy.ml – 170 points –

Something like a thermostat or a smart fridge -- have you seen any? If so, please share with a video or two.

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I once saw someone running Doom on a pregnancy tester, so I'd imagine that it could run Linux as well.

I saw that too, but it was a bit a bit misleading. The pregnancy tester for some reason had a pretty high resolution monochrome OLED display, so the guy used the tester's display to show the Doom graphics. The actual device running Doom was a more powerful controller external to the tester stick.

It wasn't even original display. Original display wasn't "pixel based", it just had couple of segments on a LCD which display pregnant/non pregnant texts and some other info. So it was (is) just a doom on a microcontroller+OLED in a pregnancy test case.

After looking through some other Doom on "insert device here" videos, I couldn't find it but I found one where the gameplay looks similar (even though it's a completely different device and the game is clearly modded). The video is called Doom 2 on optimus maximus.

I'll have to re-watch the video again if I can find it but I'm pretty sure that the video I saw was a different one because the one I remember watching had a pixelated screen screen with a low frame rate.

Well the one I'm thinking of, it had something like a 64x128 monochrome OLED screen, that fits the description of "surprisingly high resolution" for a pregnancy tester, but Doom would still appear as a "Pixelated screen" like you described. Its probably the same one we both saw. Either way, there is no microcontroller inside that device capable of running Doom, so an additional external microcontroller was attached to run the game itself.

Well, I tried to look for the video I saw but couldn't find it. All of the videos I could find have the game in monochrome with a high frame rate, while the video I remember watching looked similar to the GBA version but with a significantly worse resolution and frame rate.