DOOM on a Toaster That Refuses to Release Your Bread Until You Win

Aaron Christophel did a double take when he saw the Aeco Toastlab Elite on the store shelf and knew he wanted to get it right away. The toaster didn’t come cheap, costing around a hundred euros for a shiny new toy with a large color touchscreen and a ton of processing power that can do more than just toasting options. Most people would just plug it into the wall and forget about it, letting it toast away, but Aaron was curious…why didn’t the manufacturer go all out and give it full internet access?

Open it up, you’ll find a circuit board within the plastic case packed with technology. There’s some room on the board for a WiFi chip as well as an antenna, and the main CPU is a rebranded ArtInChip D133CxS, which is designed around a RISC V core. There’s a little flash chip for holding the original software, an 8meg chunk of extra memory to handle the display, and a basic UART connection for anyone who wishes to plug in and say hello; the welcome message reads, “Welcome to ArtInChip Luban-Lite,” which is like an open door.

Aaron quickly extracted the flash chip contents, examined the boot logs, and discovered the RT Thread operating system running the factory interface, all nice and neat thanks to the LVGL graphics library. The manufacturer also provides a complete set of tools to work with the chip, so Aaron whipped up some fresh code and flashed it back onto the board. The touchscreen burst into life at sixty frames per second, and the whole thing felt smooth and quick, much like an ESP32-P4.

Porting the original DOOM proved to be a simple task, requiring little additional effort because the toaster could now run whatever software it was directed to. Aaron left the game resolution at the original classic level, so it just filled the toaster display, and the controls are also really cool, with virtual buttons on the screen that fall into the palm of your hand. The real party trick, however, occurs when you drop the bread into the slots. The heating elements stay quiet until the player launches the game. Finish a full level and the toast pops up perfectly browned. Die too many times and a countdown timer starts so the slices do not sit there forever.
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