“It runs Doom better than a lot of PCs back in the day” – Nintendo’s new alarm clock impresses fans

"It runs Doom better than a lot of PCs back in the day" – Nintendo's new alarm clock impresses fans

As a gamer with decades of experience under my belt, I’ve seen it all – from the humble beginnings of gaming on 8-bit systems to the current era of high-definition graphics and immersive storytelling. The news about GaryOderNichts managing to run Doom on a Nintendo Alarmo is nothing short of mind-blowing!


It was inevitable that such an event would occur eventually. User GaryOderNichts managed to get the well-known ’90s video game character functioning on a unique, innovative alarm clock.

What is Nintendo Alarmo?

Nintendo Alarmo is a fresh endeavor by Nintendo, serving as an interim purchase option until the Switch 2 hits the market. Essentially, it’s an alarm clock that offers music and sounds from popular Nintendo games like Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Splatoon, and numerous others.

On October 9, Alarmo was formally unveiled; however, it can currently only be obtained by subscribed members of Nintendo Switch Online. As per the official Nintendo Alarmo website, it is expected to become accessible to the general public around mid-January 2025.

It is extremely expensive, sitting at $99.99 in the official store.

GaryOderNichts’ Nintendo Alarmo project

As an ardent admirer, let me share that GaryOderNichts, famously recognized for his reverse engineering feats on the Wii U, astonishingly accomplished the disassembly and modification of the Nintendo Alarmo within just three weeks! Initially sparked by curiosity, this project unexpectedly morphed into him gaining the ability to execute custom code on the device itself.

And what better thing to showcase than a picture of a cat?

The Nintendo Alarmo can execute custom code through a USB connection, even without physically opening it! You can find more information about this feature in the provided blog post. [Blog Post Link]

— Gary (@GaryOderNichts) October 30, 2024

To accomplish this task, GaryOderNichts didn’t require disassembling the Alarmo, contrary to some concerns. Instead, he skillfully manipulated it through its USB port.

But he took the Alarmo apart, anyway, mostly out of curiosity. He even posted about it in great detail in his blog, giving insight into both the product and his methods of hacking into it.

But things didn’t stop there.

Doom on Nintendo Alarmo

Right after GaryOderNichts shared his accomplishment of uploading a cat image onto the Nintendo Alarm clock, questions about it quickly surfaced.

"It runs Doom better than a lot of PCs back in the day" – Nintendo's new alarm clock impresses fans
"It runs Doom better than a lot of PCs back in the day" – Nintendo's new alarm clock impresses fans
"It runs Doom better than a lot of PCs back in the day" – Nintendo's new alarm clock impresses fans
"It runs Doom better than a lot of PCs back in the day" – Nintendo's new alarm clock impresses fans

It’s become quite the running gag online for people to successfully run Doom on all sorts of devices with screens, ranging from unexpected items like Fortnite and a pregnancy test, to more unlikely candidates such as a tractor, LEGO brick, and numerous other oddities. Even the Nintendo Alarmo couldn’t escape this trend.

Indeed, there was a significant desire for Bad Apple to be featured on the Nintendo Alarm Clock, but GaryOderNichts opted instead for the path of Doom.

Indeed, it took just three short days, and Gary successfully presented what the crowd had requested. Utilizing STM32Doom, Chocolate Doom, Spinda, and Mike Heskin’s expertise, he was able to operate the vintage shooter game on a digital alarm clock.

Following his previous update, “it seemed quite evident what people were eagerly anticipating on the Alarmo,” Gary stated as he shared the video demonstrating how Doom can be played effectively on the device via X/Twitter.

A significant challenge was probably the restricted methods for input – the Nintendo Alarmo features only a single rotary knob and two buttons. Despite this, Gary found a workaround. Now you can move forward by twisting the rotary knob and turn around by doing so as well, while the two side buttons on the Alarmo are utilized for firing weapons.

Gary stated in his YouTube video description that there is no audio support at the moment. To get around the USB loader’s memory size limitations, the .wad file needs to be compressed, then uncompressed to external memory upon booting. Interestingly, it’s feasible to load the shareware version of Doom directly from a USB drive without altering the Alarmo.

As a gamer, I’m sharing where you can find the source code and guidelines for recreating my project. If you manage to secure a Nintendo Alarmo, you can follow the steps yourself to give it a go! Here’s the link to the GitHub page: [GitHub Link]

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2024-11-05 19:10