Hobbyist takes a budget digital clamp meter and turns it into a gaming device. Showing that even the most functional electronic tools can play classic games. The FNIRSI DMC-100 digital clamp meter, which usually ranges from $30 – $50, now plays the first episode of Freedoom: Phase 1.
User Artur Bieniek installs custom firmware to run Freedoom on the budget device
This is significant for hobbyists who love to take things to the edge of their design and see the limits of retro gaming on odd platforms. Shows how accessible development is for such strange microcontroller uses now.
At the core of this project is the FNIRSI DMC-100, a digital clamp meter / multimeter which wasn't really built to be a gaming device. Yet user Artur Bieniek has managed to port the doomgeneric engine to it. And it's completely different than before.
This device uses the Artery AT32F415 microcontroller. And it's the brains of the custom firmware on this device. It has enough computing power to run the game logic and graphics needs of the Doom engine.
It plays in full color so that all the levels from E1M1 to E1M9 can be enjoyed in all their graphical glory. There's a DJI drone controller which connects to the meter for movement and action commands. The device has full custom firmware.
Which completely overrides the original device software. So it doesn't function for any of its original measurement uses anymore. According to Artur Bieniek, the clamp meter doesn't measure anything now. Because of the active custom game firmware.
This does void the warranty from the manufacturer. And you have to manually apply the custom firmware. It shows the versatility of the Artery AT32F415 chip.
As long as you have the right software ports to it. So this is for all the retro gaming fans. Who love to see the weird stuff you can do with classic games on odd hardware. But you can't use the FNIRSI DMC-100 for anything when using the original factory firmware.
Source: IXBT
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