Someone Got Doom Running Inside an SQL Database

The ever-growing list of devices and systems made to run Doom has gained another improbable entry. This time the 1993 shooter runs not on an oscilloscope, a printer, or a coffee machine, but inside an SQL database.

According to Ars Technica, the author implemented the game using roughly 1,300 lines of SQL queries. That proved enough for the system to produce accurate bitmapped views of Doom's Hell — and to do so at 35 frames per second.

SQL was designed as a language for working with data: selecting, filtering, and joining tables. Rendering a 3D scene in real time is a task it was never meant for. That makes the result all the more striking: the familiar queries normally used to pull rows out of tables become, here, a graphics engine.

The stunt continues the community's long-running "But can it run Doom?" tradition. The game has been ported to calculators, smart thermostats, pregnancy tests, and dozens of other devices no one would expect to host a shooter. The database edition joins that lineage as one of the most abstract takes on the idea yet: there is no hardware in the usual sense at all, only tables and queries.

There is, of course, no practical use to be found in such a project. Its value lies in showing just how far a tool can be dragged beyond its intended purpose — and in pure engineering mischief. Thirty-five frames per second coaxed out of a database is a small monument to the author's persistence and sense of humor.

Source: Ars Technica