DOOM on Husqvarna Automower | Hacker News Reader

DOOM on Husqvarna Automower

husqvarna.com

46 pointsdiggan16 comments

It's a bit strange to find something worthwhile from my hometown of Huskvarna, Sweden (population ~24,000) to submit to HN, but apparently they've planned a software update that enables you to play DOOM on the lawnmower. If that isn't HN worthy, I don't know what is.

If you're ever in central Sweden, do plan a visit to the museum that is at the birthplace of Husqvarna (the company). The company has existed since at least 1757, older than the US itself and got started as a weapons factory, and the museum has a lot of interesting stuff from the early days.

I am pretty sure that the grass still feels like they are a weapons factory...

At the museum? As I recall, there isn't much grass there at all, it is an old factory after all. It's a waterfall, a little river and a bunch of buildings basically.

I will say that they noted this came out of DreamHack which is a fairly massive conference that happens one town over from Huskvarna in Jönköping. I do think it’s cool that they get involved in the DreamHack festivities. I haven’t been to any DreamHacks but from talking to my Swedish friends who have been to the Jönköping one and my brothers who help run the American ones every year it seems like the festivities at the Jönköping one have decidedly more hackery stuff like this vs the American ones which seem to focus more on the gaming aspect. Maybe someone who has been to the events can confirm though.

I actually were there for the last summer edition (DreamHack Summer 2023) as I just happened to be visiting Sweden at that time, so we went there with my younger niece who enjoyed it a lot. Although he mostly played games he already had at home, he just wanted to show how good he was at those games, but for him and his generation DreamHack is 100% about the gaming.

Compared to how I remember it was when I was younger (first DreamHack must have been 2006 I think), I felt like it was very commercialized already with almost zero non-gaming booths or companies there, besides some state organizations like the police and military. DreamHack always had a huge focus on gaming, it is mostly a gaming event after all, but I seem to recall more hackery and nerdery outside of gaming back then compared to now.

Not sure how the situation is now at DreamHack, but when we were there as teenagers the best part was the huge DC++ hubs with unheard amount of bandwidth as it's all local. It was at DreamHack I first got exposed to the world of 3D animation and graphics, as I came across a cracked version of 3DS Max 9 from some user. Rest of my time at the party was spent trying to figure out how it worked.

Buying and selling hardware was also a common theme for some of my friends, starting with something like a mousepad and competing who can have the coolest thing at the end of the event, after trading up from the mousepad.

But then I don't know how the US edition is, so hard to compare really.

(By the way, I think "fairly massive" is an understatement, as far as I know, it's still the world's largest bring-your-own-computer LAN party)

The hot dog vending machine is my favorite!

I was expecting to see a water pistol installed on the mower and humans around identified as monsters. This is the censored version - I really imagined another weapon from the first Doom level, also made by Husqvarna. :)

> Sign-up closes on 26 August 2024. On September 9, 2024, a software update will remove DOOM from the robotic lawn mowers.

They put DRM on a lawn mower.

So when that time comes I expect to see this mower on the frontpage again when an actual hacker does it, and then it will be much more interesting.

> They put DRM on a lawn mower.

John Deere liked this

So it can run Doom, but the question is can it mow lawn?

I was really expecting it to play at a frame rate of one frame per mow. Not sure what the input would be for that version, but it would be pretty cool to see flying over.

I kinda don’t want things that have spinning blades running Doom

wasn't Doom's most basic weapon a chainsaw?

if Doom is in a lawn mower.. i wonder what might be in a robotic chainsaw ..

Fitting in several ways since Husqvarna makes chainsaws, is a former major weapons manufacturer, and even has a rifle sight as the company logo.

There's also a pretty well known Doom mini-mod which adds a ride-on lawnmower. It's called Doom Mower - Lawn of the Dead.

https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=61681

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