# Browser demo makes Doom playable through an IBM Z terminal

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/doom-delivers-five-minutes-of-terminal-violence-on-an-ibm-mainframe/
- Published: 2026-11-08T11:19:00+00:00
- Updated: 2026-11-08T11:32:22+00:00
- Original publisher: The Register
- Original article: https://www.theregister.com/offbeat/2026/11/08/doom-delivers-five-minutes-of-terminal-violence-on-an-ibm-mainframe/5308092
- Topics: Software

## Key points

- Doom is playable as coloured ASCII on an IBM Z mainframe.
- The browser demo needs no login or installation.
- Sessions are limited to five minutes.

## Summary

A browser demo lets users play Doom on an IBM Z mainframe through an SSH-connected text terminal, with the game’s graphics rendered as coloured ASCII characters. It matters less as a feat of getting Doom to run on the hardware, which has been done in many forms, than as an entertaining demonstration of making it playable through a terminal.

The demo uses WND Software’s terminal emulator and Wojciech Graj’s DOOM-ASCII, and requires no installation or login. There is no sound, and distant objects can be difficult to make out, but the game is playable; sessions last up to five minutes, with capacity for 50 simultaneous users.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.