[nailer]

WAIT. Newell's Windows port (commonly referred to as DOOM95 http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Doom95) was never popular and very few DOOM players knew it even existed. It certainly didn't prove to the masses that Windows was a viable gaming platform.

Those that do recall the Windows port do so in the the context of Microsoft telling people that '32 bit Doom will be twice as fast' before finding out that wasn't true.

The most popular - read 'only' - PC version of Doom was the DOS 4GW version. Ditto Doom 2, Hexen, etc. Quake also assumed DOS. No Windows port of those games was mainstream. Go read the DOOM FAQ - everything assumes DOS, DOOM95/WinDOOM is only mentioned as one of many ports of 'regular' (DOS) DOOM http://www.gamers.org/docs/FAQ/doomfaq/sect1.html#5-6).

DOOM was released in the era of 386s (when 486s were new). 32 bit Windows required at practically at least 16MB of memory and a 486. For the people that had those specs, if the Windows DOOM port was faster, people would have used it - but they didn't, because DOOM95 wasn't faster.

DOOM95 may have been used to inspire developers however - the regular PC version of Quake 2 came with a Windows installer / launcher and was frequently launched on Windows.

Source: spent my teenage years building stuff like http://mikemaccana.com/#/doom-the-path/ in DEU, the first algorithm I ever heard of was BSP, and I know what IDSPISPOPD stands for.

PS. Go play my and John's WAD linked above. It has working toilets. In DOOM!

[jseliger]

The other interesting thing is that, as far as I know, until the late 90s the entire installed base of computers was bought practically every year. There'd be 10M computers one year and 10M bought the next. In that kind of fluid market a company can take over without winning converts (Joel Spolsky wrote about it here: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html).

Today, PC sales are steady or falling because everyone in the developed world has one already. Someone buying a second or third computer is getting a tablet.

[jasonlotito]

> WAIT. Newell's Windows port (commonly referred to as DOOM95 http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Doom95) was never popular and very few DOOM players knew it even existed. It certainly didn't prove to the masses that Windows was a viable gaming platform.

Not sure where the original article ever makes those claims.

[nailer]

In the post's title: "Newell's history porting Doom to Win to show it can be a gaming platf." The general context of the post seems to be about proving Linux to consumers, rather than developers (which is more accurate).

[ambiate]

Quakeworld was my entry point into wanting to program. BSP, VIS, DISP, oh yeah. I remember trying to figure out the math for projectiles and the various splash damage routines.

I remember bunnyhopping and attempting to figure out the glitch to alter the effect even more on sharper turns.

So many 'wasted years' that resulted in a wonderful career and field of study. I emailed John a few times throughout the years. He was the most courteous and honest person I have ever met. One of the replies from Carmack went along the lines of, 'Yeah, those models are our IP. If your community is small and the growth is not going to explode, feel free to use them. Just do not brag about it on your website. Our lawyers are not hunting for people, unless they wish to be seen.'

[nailer]

Carmack's a legend - he's done good things (which I can't talk about) for the WebGL community too, ask Tojiro next time you visit a conference.

Weird Quake/Doom crossover: Doom had 'rocket jumps' (pushing yourself further off a cliff via smashing a rocket into the wall) - one was required for the E3 secret level.

Doom also had accidental wall riding but only when you were headed north. :^)

[AlexMax]

North and east.

It's due to the 'sliding' check on walls, if the player is moving fast enough, the movement path is divided in half and each is checked for obstacles...but if the obstacle happens to be in both segments of the path, you're slid twice.

And the reason the bug only happened when you're moving north and east is due to...another bug, the check is done only if your movement is greater than X or Y, not if it's less than negative X or Y.

[bluedino]

Part of the reason Doom95 wasn't very popular was that came along so late. It didn't come out until 1996, which was 3 years after Doom originally came out for DOS and the same time Quake arrived.

I didn't have a Doom-capable computer until 1995, and it was hard to find people to play Doom/Heretic/Descent since everyone had moved on to Duke 3D and some game called Warcraft...

It was nice to not have to play Doom in DOS anymore, though.

[nailer]

Yeah, it's even got Thy Flesh Consumed which was from Ultimate DOOM (the last official id DOOM 1 release, which came out years after DOOM was first released).

I think Newell's comments are about showing developers that Windows games could have good frame rates. Which is reasonable.

The Neogaf poster is confusing that with Newell showing the DOS version to people to prove that the PC could have awesome games.

[bluedino]

Microsoft was throwing a ton of effort into getting developers to move to Windows. It took a while but they got here.

They had 'bad' demos like Hover! but there were some pretty nice games like Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure, Earthworm Jim, and Fury^3.

Once it got OpenGL and Direct3D, Win32 ruled the gaming world. It already had 32-bitness, virtual memory, TCP/IP... Apple dinked around with things like QuickDraw3D and GameSprockets but they just couldn't get it together for some reason.

[mzs]

Oh man Hover! was awesome. (At least to me.) You can still download it from microsoft, check the bottom FTP link:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hover!

Grr, the exclamation point is not working, so copy paste.

[jccalhoun]

very few Doom players knew it even existed? really? It was the version I had when I bought it back in the day. I assumed a lot of people bought it.

[Argorak]

Final Doom included Doom95 and used it by default on Windows, so I would expect that many players were aware.

[nailer]

Sure but as the other poster notes, by the time Final Doom came out the world was already onto Quake.

[gadders]

That wad looks familiar. I wonder if I ever played it.

When I used to work for Lotus we used to use their Unix box in the US to FTP onto one of the big CDROM sites that had loads of wads on and play different ones every week. Happy days.

[gadders]

And one other thing - what's the best Doom port for Android? Any recommendations, anyone?

[ebbv]

But did you ever play SPISPOPD? :)