Can it run Doom? Modder cracks Apple Pippin 27 years later

A modder with far too much time on their hands has cracked Apple’s defunct Pippin gaming console to run classic shooter Doom, joining the increasingly unhinged ranks of devices that have been adapted to play the shooter.

Selena the Retro-Princess took to X this week to reveal the stunt. “Last night I managed to get an Apple Pippin to run Doom!”, Selena exclaimed, adding “Few things are more satisfying than getting Doom to run on a machine that it wasn’t made for! I can’t believe I managed to pull this off! I’m so excited!”

Images from the post show Apple’s Pippin, which I think looks a bit like Gameboy’s Kirby, busted open to make the classic FPS run.

I’m super proud of this everyone!Last night I managed to get an Apple Pippin to run Doom!Few things are more satisfying than getting Doom to run on a machine that it wasn’t made for! I can’t believe I managed to pull this off! I’m so excited!#modding #retrogames #doom pic.twitter.com/1ObEUVGoo4October 12, 2023

Can it run Doom? Yes it can.

Images and video show the Pippin successfully booting up and running Doom in blazing 256-bit glory. Selena described the game as “not completely smooth” but playable and running natively. The Apple Pippin takes its place alongside a wild list of modded devices that have been butchered so they can run Doom.

In fact, there’s an entire website aptly named “canitrundoom.org” which reveals Doom has been cracked on a Porsche 911 display, an ATM, three toasters, a piano, and an ultrasound scanner.

Considering that Apple’s Pippin is actually a gaming console designed to run games, the most impressive Apple x Doom crossover might go to diffractive’s viral (and successful) attempt at running Doom on a MacBook Pro Touch Bar from 2017.

Until recently, that was about as good as gaming got on the Mac, but despite not making its own games console anymore, Apple is pushing gaming harder than ever across its product ecosystem. The new iPhone 15 Pro boasts an A17 Pro chip that features hardware accelerated ray tracing, while macOS Sonama has lots of gaming features powered by Apple silicon, which is bringing games we never thought possible to Mac, including Baldur’s Gate 3.