[sax-forward jazz music]
[drive buzzes] [PC beeps]
- Greetings, and got another LGR
portrait display video for you here.
Actually recording *in* portrait mode this time,
because that's what this video is all about,
and it seemed thematically appropriate.
And this is the Radius Full Page Pivot Display,
something I've covered in detail on LGR already.
If you'd like some more information on that,
do check out that video.
The Pivot is a fantastic CRT monitor from 1991
that allows you to display Windows 3.1
and DOS software in portrait mode.
Some were for Macintosh too, but mine's for the PC.
Add it can also rotate back to
your regular landscape orientation on the fly.
[joint squeaks] It's a bit squeaky,
but it works great despite its limitations
that I went over in my original Oddware video.
Now, just as a quick refresher,
this relies on a mercury sensor to do the switching,
plus some Radius software
as well as the Multiview SVGA card.
So if you don't have software
that is compatible with all of the above,
then it's just going to run sideways when rotated.
Let's just get into "Doom," for instance.
[Clacky Keyboard typing]
Just your normal version of Doom here.
It's of course not meant to run vertically,
so if you're trying to do that on a monitor like this,
typically, Doom doesn't know what to do with it.
And it's gonna be the same
for literally every other piece of software
that isn't optimized for this display,
which includes practically every single game for DOS.
This is, of course, not a gaming monitor.
This was made for working on CAD programs
and graphic design and documents and stuff.
It's still a decent monitor for DOS games in landscape,
but then it's just like every other monitor.
Obviously we want "tate mode" gaming
on this lovely, albeit squeaky, display.
And on that note, in my original Oddware episode
that I did for this monitor, I said this...
Sorry, no such thing as "Portrait Doom,"
or "Pivot Doom," or whatever.
At least not yet, man. You know, hey!
Somebody do a source port for DOS. "Pivot Doom!"
That'd be amazing. That would be stupid.
But I would love to see it running properly,
just to see Doom switch between the two.
And, well, it seems that Mr. Matt Phillips
was listening at least, because now we have "Toom."
Yeah, this is a version of Doom
that works on DOS PCs, emulators too, of course,
but meant to work on original hardware in tate mode,
which of course is a Japanese term for "vertical,"
common with a lot of arcade games, especially shooters.
But yeah, now it's available on portrait mode monitors
for your DOS PC, if you happen to have one of those.
So he released this under his alias/moniker,
@bigevilboss, or Big Evil Corporation, it's on GitHub.
And special thanks to @Bhaal_Spawn
and @AngryBossBee for some help,
and also me for inspiration.
So I did not expect to see tate Doom
come about so quickly.
This is pretty wild that this happened,
and let's just check it out.
There is a readme that it comes with here. And...
Well, let's put this back to the other orientation.
"Welcome to your TOOM.
TATE mode DOOM for IBM PC compatibles by Matt Phillips."
And I was really impressed to see
that indeed there is a narrative that's been crafted
specifically for this version of "Doom."
"Welcome! Hell has tipped over, and all the devils are here.
While we knew that the UAC's occult experiments
would end in chaos and despair,
we didn't expect their meddling
would result in anything quite so vertical.
Your hero, Ian Doombloke,
was widely mocked among his squadron
for the inoperable crick in his neck.
[Sideways chuckling] For his whole life,
he faced mockery and scorn
because his head was sort of bent to one side.
But this kind of terrible fortune
breeds resilience in those it touches,
and on the day that Hell's big sods
began spilling through the UAC VertiPortal,
Ian Doombloke knew his time had come."
So yeah, you're playing a Doom Marine
with his head tilted permanently to 90 degrees.
[laughs] And that's the in-universe, lore-based reason
for having vertical "Doom," that's awesome.
Yeah, more special thanks here and some installation stuff.
Really it just consists of installing
regular version Doom 1.9,
which is "The Ultimate Doom," I believe,
and then the contents of the Toom disk,
which is just a zip file you can get from GitHub,
to the installation directory,
rotate your monitor, or your head, and run TOOM.EXE.
Otherwise it is just normal "Doom," rotated.
[monitor squeaks]
Yeah, that action right there never gets old.
This is such a cool monitor. [laughs] Despite the squeaks.
Let's just go ahead and run "Toom" here.
And yeah, it begins exactly the same way
as normal Doom 1.9 would.
But once it gets loaded...
Well, there you go.
Everything's just sorta rotated.
Custom splash screen there, Big Evil Corp.
And check it out. [laughs]
It's vertical-mode tate Doom.
[demons growling]
Now, you do also get
some clever little additions and changes here.
The episodes, of course, are changed.
"The Shooter," "Hell's Big Sods," and "Godpuncher."
And the difficulties are different as well.
"My Neck Hurts," "Gods, My Neck,"
"Really Sore," "Snap!" and "Chiropractor."
We're gonna go for "Snap!"
["At Doom's Gate" by Bobby Prince plays]
And there we go.
Now, it's not gonna run the best on here, unfortunately,
because this is on my Woodgrain 486
and it's, you know, not the fastest.
And I'm also having to run it on that Multiview SVGA card,
which is slower than the thing I normally have in here.
[gunfire popping off] [zombie soldiers groaning]
Ooh, yeah. Yeah, performance is not good.
And another reason for that is because...
I guess a side effect of the way this was put together,
I can no longer run it in the lower detail mode
that I normally would on this system.
[key mashing]
That's that button right there, and it would sorta normally
crunch down the resolution a bit.
[key mashing] Doesn't do that.
And you also can't resize the gameplay window.
[key mashing in increased futility]
So I guess those are just some side effects
of this "Toom" port, or update/patch/WAD,
whatever you want to call it.
[chuckles] Executable weirdness!
[zombies groaning]
Yeah, I don't really have another system
that makes sense to put this graphics card in
with this monitor that's faster,
so this'll just have to do for now.
But yeah, I think you get the point. Toom!
It's real!
Oh boy.
A bit of a hitch there.
I'm assuming performance is...
Wow! Daggone it!
[laughing] Lower the difficulty level.
I'm assuming it's also a little bit more limited
because you are looking at more space up and down.
There's way more view port that direction.
I don't know if that impacts performance
terribly badly or not, but...
Meh.
Either way, this is just all kinds of strange.
Let's just run through it.
[imp screaming]
[imp death]
There we go.
Sweet.
[intermission gunfire]
There's another little unfortunate
side effect of things here.
You don't actually get all of this on the screen.
But I mean, at least it's the right orientation.
You just can't see it.
[ominous music]
Yes.
[zombies growl]
Oh. [laughs]
Another kind of interesting side effect there.
Look at the skyboxes.
They just sorta stack vertically.
So, ya know...
Still, the fact that this is a thing
and is put together as well as it is.
I mean, obviously he had to redo the UI,
a good portion of, I guess,
the sprites and artwork, the menus.
I don't even know all the details, but yeah,
there's a thread I'll link to on Twitter
that was sort of as he was developing it,
putting together this particular version.
It was fascinating to see some of the things
he was having to overcome in order to make it happen.
And like I said, it just came together so much quicker
than I thought it would.
[laughs] Seriously.
I was thinking somebody might be able to do it someday,
but dude had it done in like, two weeks?
Week and a half? I don't know, something like that.
It was quick.
Props to you, sir, for putting this together.
[zombies screaming]
Fine. Good enough.
[chaingun popping off]
All right, well, I think you've got the idea here.
[laughs] I just wanted to show this off,
and yeah, let people know that it existed
because it exists!
And I think it's so cool.
If I make an offhand comment like that in a video,
I just never know who's gonna be listening
or what it might actually turn into.
Oh yeah.
It's oddly appealing on levels like this, too.
Look at this.
Yeah, 'cause you see the weird upside-down crosses
and the taller architecture going on.
There's a lot of tall rooms
and big outdoor areas in Doom.
That look really cool in portrait mode.
Aw, man.
Yeah, like just being able to see up there.
I mean, sure, you got the weird skybox stacking,
but hey, it looks awesome.
I was also sort of...
In my mind, when I said that,
I was just talking about portrait mode Doom,
I thought that'd be cool but stupid.
But then I thought, "No, wait, it would be cool,"
because I don't know if anyone remembers "Doom RPG?"
That was a thing on cellphones.
It was a BREW game.
Yeah!
That was sort of a portrait Doom, of sorts.
Obviously it wasn't "Doom" Doom,
it was, you know, "Doom RPG," but still.
In my head I was kind of imagining that.
Yeah, weird hallways like this? [laughs]
This architecture. Look, you can see it all, there it is!
'Cause yeah, you can't look up and down in Doom,
so there you go.
This is the solution.
[pinkies groaning]
[pinky snorts]
Oh man.
[Duke voice] Gimme my shotgun back.
See, this is just sad. [laughs]
I can't get a handle on daggum pinky demons.
Man.
You can tell I haven't played low frame rate Doom
in a long time.
Oh yeah, "What's up, your neck hurts?"
[chuckles] Hey, a nice little Easter egg there.
"Balls and farts."
So a very clearly LGR-inspired version of Doom now exists.
Go check it out.
Even if you don't have a Radius Portrait Full Pivot Display,
you know, not many people do, this is a very rare monitor,
just check it out, yeah.
Try it on DOSBox.
If you've got an LCD rotating display,
like this kinda thing right here, you can do that too.
Obviously it'll work on anything.
It's literally just rotating the game 90 degrees,
so you can take any monitor and rotate it
whether or not it's an actual rotating monitor or not.
Just stick it on its side.
Or rotate your real head and get a crick in your neck.
This is -- [chuckle of absurd realization] so silly.
I love that this exists.
That's it for this video.
I hope that you enjoyed this complete ramble of excitement
at me just being amused that this even exists
because of a random offhand comment
made in an LGR Oddware video.
Or, really, it's not because of that.
It's because of the hard work
by Matt Phillips and others for putting this together,
just taking some inspiration from said random comment.
I really did nothing. I just thought aloud. [laughs]
So don't blame me.
Blame him and thank him,
and do check out his GitHub page and other projects
that I'm assuming he's got going on, I don't know.
Yeah, if nothing else, "Toom"!
I am happy this is a thing.
This has really, absolutely made my week.
So I hope that you enjoyed it at least half as much as I did
and thank you for watching.