Demon Destroyer Gunn

From DoomWiki.org

Revision as of 09:36, 3 July 2018 by Quasar (talk | contribs) (recat)


Packaging art.

The Demon Destroyer Gunn is a PC game port controller created by TAC Systems, Inc., and originally released in 1995 for a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $99.00.[1] The controller's weapon-shaped profile is modeled after the chaingun from Doom, and evidence strongly suggests that TAC Systems originally intended to license the Doom brand from id Software for the product. That the license went unused may be due to the product's poor reception - it earned the number two place in the Computer Gaming World list, "The 15 Worst Peripherals", in the magazine's November 1995 issue, citing unreliability, unusability, and poor appearance.[2] Note that, despite the controller's gun-like design, it does not possess any motion sensing or light gun capabilities, and simply acts as a mundane analog two-axis, two-button PC game controller.

The controller included a CD-ROM with several shareware games, which included Doom and Heretic.

As the "DoomGunn"

Evidence abounds that the product was to originally be called the "DoomGunn". An H2HMud announcement on the rec.games.computer.doom.announce Usenet group in August 1995 explains that TAC Systems had signed on as the first official sponsor of the then-upcoming H2HMud North American Deathmatch Tourney, and would provide a DoomGunn to each of the top twelve players in the tournament.[1] In addition, contemporary articles in Computer Gaming World and Micromanía refer to the product directly by that name, or explain that its name had changed but that it was still the same product.[2][3]

A Designer News forum post by Stuart McCoy, the designer of the controller's packaging, explained that the DoomGunn name was in use at the time of his work, and that his original design used lettering resembling the Doom logo, rather than the "faux metal texture" found on the final box.[4]

Finally, early specimens of the controller actually retain the name, along with a dubious trademark stamp (no registration with the United States Patent and Trademark Office appears to have ever been successfully made for the mark), on a panel on the right side of the controller, which on later models is entirely missing the top line of text which only reads "DoomGunn".

External links

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 da Muddy_One (15 August 1995). "DoomGunn for winner of 'There Can Be Only 1!'." rec.games.computer.doom.announce. Retrieved 30 June 2018.
  2. 2.0 2.1 Fifteenth Anniversary Special - The 15 Worst Peripherals (1995, November). Computer Gaming World, 148, 124.
  3. Para matarte mejor DOOM GUNN (1995, December). Micromanía (Tercera época), 11, 20.
  4. McCoy, Stuart (18 November 2016). "What is one of the first things you ever designed?" Designer News. Retrieved 30 June 2018.