Doom (Pocket PC)
From DoomWiki.org
Doom for Pocket PC (later retitled Doom PDA) was initially released in 2002 by developer MachineWorks Northwest, LLC, and published by Simon & Schuster Interactive, Inc, for MIPS-based Windows CE devices.
Although the IWAD for The Ultimate Doom is included, only the original three episodes are playable. All cheats from the DOS version work, but the level select cheat does not work for the fourth episode Thy Flesh Consumed. This port does not play any music, though the music volume setting is still shown in the options. There is no support for multiplayer games or for loading WAD files.
Digital re-release[edit]
This port was later re-released as a digital download for ARM devices as "Doom PDA," targeting Windows Mobile 5.0. At that time, developer MachineWorks Northwest unsuccessfully pressured the authors of several free and open source ports for Windows Mobile devices in an attempt to make them cease distribution. This action raised the ire of many Pocket PC gaming enthusiasts.[1]
Bugs[edit]
The IWAD contains four demos, however the game will crash after the second demo due to the game trying to load the lump HELP2 which does not exist in the WAD. Adding the lump HELP2 will fix the crash and play the third demo correctly. DEMO4 is skipped, but forcing the demo to load will cause it to play incorrectly as it will try to run on E3M2 instead of E4M2.
Due to a broken digital restrictions management scheme, the game must be installed to the default path, even though the setup asks if the user wants to install it elsewhere. If it is not installed to the default path, a misleading error message pops up, stating "Serial Numbers Don't Match!" As this prevents installation of the game onto SD cards, this creates major issues on 32 MB or smaller devices, as the game is a total of 14 MB in size - all effectively available space on the device will be used up by the game.
Another issue with this scheme is that, after a device restore via ActiveSync or Windows Mobile Device Center, the device must be reset immediately; otherwise, the game will not start, and the same misleading error message pops up instead.
Serial Numbers Don't Match![edit]
This error message is displayed as part of the copy protection shipped with the game but users can encounter this message when restoring a device or installing the game to the SD card rather than device storage. During installation the application cp.exe is copied into the device's \Windows directory and executed. This application will generate 4 bytes which are saved in the hidden file \Windows\wind.opt as well as appended to the end of Doom.exe and doom1.wad. When the game is launched these values are validated and if they do not match then the error message "Serial Numbers Don't Match!". If this occurs after a device restore then simply executing \Windows\cp.exe will solve the error.
The checks that the game performs are hard-coded to look for the files \Profile Files\DoomPDA\doom1.wad and \Windows\Start Menu\Doom.exe, therefore if the game is install to the SD card the verification will fail. cp.exe does not check for the existence of Doom.exe or doom1.wad and executing it when these files are missing will result in 4-byte files being created in these locations.
IWAD[edit]
The IWAD provided for use by Doom for PocketPC is called doom1.wad and is actually a PWAD created using WinTex. It also contains approximately 2 megabytes of 'WinTex History' which can be used to undo the last changes to the WAD with WinTex's Restore PWAD feature. Some of the graphic lumps have been modified to have vertical black bars with the image squashed horizontally in order to preserve proper aspect ratio. It is 14,445,628 bytes in size with 2,305 entries, one entry less than the Ultimate Doom WAD. It is missing the lump M_EPI4. During installation the application cp.exe is installed to the \Windows directory and executed. This application will append bytes to the end of the WAD, along with its other files, as part of its copy protection. This results in a WAD that is different for every installation. The unaltered WAD that can be found within the installation files has the following hashes:
| Hash type | Hash code |
|---|---|
| MD5 | 88ce96442d269ef515b39fe34f08a9b7 |
| SHA-1 | 23a3a8bfafcfdc7c481f282cf2a3d03e5f386d43 |
| CRC-32 | 0874d1c3 |
Gallery[edit]
Episode selection menu.
Back cover.
Installation CD-ROM.
Doom for Pocket PC running on an HP iPAQ.
Hex view of IWAD, displaying WinTex edit string in its header.
"Serial Numbers Don't Match!" error message.
References[edit]
- ↑ White, Courtney (21 January 2002). "Boycott Doom PDA." PocketMatrix forums. Retrieved 2 April 2016.
