Does It Really Make Sense to Run *DOOM* on a 40-Year-Old Printer?

It runs. But that’s not the point. What really makes this valuable is turning an old machine back into a usable computing device.

Tech blogger Adrian found a new use for a 40-year-old Agfa Compugraphic 9000PS, eventually getting Doom 1.9 to boot on this printer controller. It wasn’t just some random old shell, but a professional device capable of processing complex PostScript and converting it into raster images. The motherboard has a 16MHz 68020, and the I/O control board also carries a 68000, giving this platform far more tinkering potential than the average antique.

The hardest part of this project wasn’t installing the game, but the reverse engineering that came before it. Adrian spent a great deal of time analyzing the ROM code, replacing the original Adobe PostScript parser with custom firmware based on AGFA-MON. The new firmware not only added a monitor program, but also provided system boot options and even included a BASIC interpreter. Paired with a VERA 8-bit graphics card originally prepared for a homebrew computer project, this outdated machine finally had room to keep evolving.

At around 1 hour and 6 minutes into the video, the modified machine begins running demo programs. Adrian first shows some CP/M-related content, then switches into the Unix system Minix, and finally gets the full shareware version of Doom 1.9 running through Minix. The process says a lot: this wasn’t a one-off easter egg, but a reconstruction of a complete usage pipeline for an old platform.

Don’t romanticize the result—the actual performance is poor. The game runs with obvious stuttering, and without PS/2-compatible keyboard support, the controls are barely playable. It’s more like a highly demanding hardware archaeology project than a nostalgic setup made for actual players. If all you care about is whether Doom can be played smoothly, the answer is simple: no.

This kind of content has had a steady audience in recent years, because people aren’t watching for frame rates—they’re watching for the challenge of pushing compatibility to the limit. From calculators to pregnancy tests, Doom has long since become the geek community’s universal benchmark, but this time it’s more substantial than a simple stunt. The reason is straightforward: Adrian didn’t modify a display terminal, but a controller originally designed for professional printing workflows, which meant a higher technical barrier and a more complete process.

If you’re an ordinary gamer, it’s enough just to watch and appreciate it—there’s no need to treat this as a beginner’s guide to getting into retro hardware. If you really want to bring old equipment home to tinker with, first consider whether the documentation is complete, whether the interfaces are friendly, and whether keyboard and display output are easy to solve. For collectors and hardware enthusiasts, the value of this modification is very clear: old machines aren’t only for display, provided you truly have the ability to break system-level problems down layer by layer.