How to get Doom running in Windows’ notepad.exe

Enlarge / Doom as it was meant to be played. (credit: Sam Chiet)

Hackers of a certain age are intimately familiar with the "Will it run Doom" meme and the wide array of ports it has engendered (including a game of Doom that runs inside an instance of Doom itself). Still, this week's viral video and eventual itch.io release of a Doom port running in Windows' standard notepad.exe text editor left us with a number of questions.

Chief among them: "How?" and "Why?"

My favorite kind of magic trick"

When it comes to the "How?" DoomPad coder Sam Chiet told Ars that the hack is "my favorite kind of magic trick," the kind that "seems wild, but it's super simple."

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