Did the original Doom use mouse?

I know when you download or install Doom now, the mouse doesn't work. But is that because the mouse function simply isn't compatible with newer systems or is it because the game never used mouse to start with?

It is just I'm kind of OCD about playing games in their purest form. As they were designed by the developer. It is why I'm not mental about mods and I think Skyrim is boring as a result. A game that is only good by changing everything with mods isn't a good game. In that case it is the mods that are good. The developer might as well just give us a map with nothing in it and let the modders do everything for them.

Anyway rant over. DOOM!

No. Originally Doom didn't use the mouse. Rather if a enemy was within a area of the screen the bullets, rockets and plasma shots would automatically fly towards it. Reason for this was the restriction of the machines at the time and being able to use the mouse to aim and look around would likely put so much strain on the machine and game that it would lag and be near unplayable.

Mouse look was an added feature later on however when machines got more powerful.

what Treflis said

Sure it did, it used the mouse in the same way Wolfenstein 3D did: to look left and right and move forwards/backwards. Of course there was no looking up/down, since Doom didn't have any vertical scaling (aka "Y-shearing", which didn't come until Heretic, the next year).

This is correct, but the game did come out in 1993 and computer mice were not necessarily as widespread as they were today. Windows 3.x was just getting off the ground (the first version of Windows that anyone really cared about) and it was very common for people to just be running one of the later versions of DOS. Big studio video games were still all DOS based and would be for many years, so mouse support was not assumed for everyone. While you could use a mouse, the game was also designed with a keyboard control scheme in mind.

-Byshop

@Byshop: all the computers sold then came with mice still though. My first computer was 286 with dos and it had a mouse and a file explorer program called tree I believe you could use it in. I played alloy of point and click games back then like kings quest. I guess there might be a few with no mice though.

Doom used a mouse if a mouse driver is loaded by the config.sys file. Doom didn't have mouse-look. But, it did use a mouse for direction and the left mouse button for firing weapons.

I just tried Doom via DOSBox which has a mouse driver loaded. Doom used the mouse.

Windows 3.0 came out in 1990 and OS2 have been around since 1987. A number of Sierra and Lucasart point and click adventure games were already out before 1990.

A mouse (along with VGA/SVGA and soundcards) was fairly standard equipment by 1993.

This was my PC back in 1993 (notice the VHS and cassette tapes plus 5.25" floppies). A mouse was standard equipment by then. The brand new tech coming up were CD-ROM drives and TV tuners.

By 1993, the mouse was in widespread use even if the majority of its use was in an office environment. BBSes (precursors to online Web sites) were also plentiful. Online games using modems were also widespread. Heck, online-only games such as Air Warrior first came out in the late 80's.

The early 90's isn't as ancient as some people think. The only thing lacking was 3D-acceleration.

@jun_aka_pekto: I had 3d acceleration but it was later 90s though. Had a matrox card then a voodoo1.

And me and my friend would do direct dial mutlplayer with doom, quake, and command and conquer. If one of his sisters didn't try and answer phone that is lol

Of course that's also true, at least to an extent: by 1993 mice were already becoming widespread. Hell, My 1988 Amiga 500 came with one in the box. Any half competent PC gamer owned one back then, unless they wanted to miss out (or have a butchered experience with) Monkey Island, Indy and the Fate of Atlantis, Ultima VI, VII and VII/2 and many more. Being a PC gamer and not owning a mouse in 1993 was pretty much like playing an Xbox 360 without a hard drive today: possible, but lame.

Though you are correct when you say that Doom was designed with a keyboard in mind.

It was -starting- to become widespread, but like I said it wasn't a guarantee. My first several computers pre-dated the 286s. DB9 serial port mice were starting to become standard on modern and newer PCs by that point, but not everybody was buying a new computer every year (especially back then when they were considered to be more of a long term investment).

The Amiga was really ahead of its time, to be fair. It was leaps and bounds ahead of comparable PCs on graphics and sound. Also, some of those games were "top of the line" at their time and wouldn't even play on most PCs that people actually owned. Ultima 7 was the first true 32-bit game on any platform and even came with its own memory manager to use in place of QEMM or Memmaker. But yeah, if you were a gamer during this time you not only had a mouse but at least an Adlib card if not a proper Sound Blaster. Still, game companies were hedging their bets so even those games that you mentioned could work with a keyboard (although u7 without a mouse was horrible).

-Byshop

Is it even possible to play Ultima V and onwards without a mouse? (That backpack inventory would be a nightmare - to code and play).

@jun_aka_pekto said:

This was my PC back in 1993 (notice the VHS and cassette tapes plus 5.25" floppies). A mouse was standard equipment by then. The brand new tech coming up were CD-ROM drives and TV tuners.

Stylishly retro

@Black_Knight_00: Ultima VII could be played without a mouse, but it was absolutely designed for mouse play only so "KB only" play equated to using the numeric keypad to move the mouse cursor around.

3.0 came out in 90, but nobody cared about Windows at all until 3.1 which was a few years later. Similarly, with OS2 yes it had been out for a while but it was pretty much exclusively found on IBM PS2s which came with a mouse. These systems were a bit ahead of the rest of the pack but the Microchannel architecture never really took off in favor of "PC Compatibles" which is about when IBM totally lost control of the platform they had created with the PC and XT. The closest thing that OS2 got to mainstream acceptance was with OS2 Warp in 94 (I think), but even then if you were running it there was a pretty good chance it was because you actually worked for IBM. Win95 came out a year later and absolutely crushed it.

But looking back, I think you guys are right. Stuff was really evolving in the late 80s and early 90s and it looks like 93 was a little bit further along than I remember. I'm pretty sure I played Doom on KB, but in retrospect that might also have been partially because I was playing it on computers at my high school that I had secretly loaded games like Doom, Heretic, Hexen, etc on. I was rocking a 386DX-25 back then with a proper VGA adapter and a 16-bit Sound Blaster.

-Byshop

Well I just know when I was computer shopping mice were common. I don't remember the year but I bought a 286 from fretter which I believe all shut down in mid 90s. My 2nd computer was a monster 486 with a cd drive and speakers.

That said I don't think most people used the mouse to play doom I know I just used keyboard.

I understand what you're saying about mods. I generally prefer to play through the vanilla versions of games without them - otherwise it kinda feels a bit like cheating.

But for a bit of fun after I've clocked the vanilla version - maybe.

@jun_aka_pekto said:

Sweet setup man, even for today.

He He. Not really. Although the photo was taken in 1993, the PC itself was from 1992. The CPU was an AMD 386DX-40 with math coprocessor. It ran Doom fine at low-res. It was starting to chug with either the higher res setting or fullscreen setting. Doom was great for having dynamically changeable screen sizes. I had to reduce the playable area similar to the image below. It took an Intel 486 to play Doom at max settings.

As for the rest of my setup..... The monitor was a 14" Packard Hell with a max res of 640x480. The sound card was a Soundblaster Pro. That PC did have a 1x CD-ROM which was state of the art for the time. Otherwise, the PC was pretty low-end by 1993. CPU progress was very rapid compared to today. In 1993, consumers had their choice of CPUs ranging from a 386DX-40 to the 486 to the 486DX2 to the first Pentiums. Most people simply couldn't keep up. I went with a 486DX2 in 1994 which was quite decent until Quake was released.

Edit: I took the photo in the first place because of the new CD-ROM drive. ☺

Doom as I played it on my 386 vs Doom as it should have been.

I think this should settle the question of whether Doom used a mouse or not. By the way, there is a shareware version of Doom which consisted of Episode 1 (full game had three episodes). Works great with DOSBox.

I remember I couldn't run quake but my friend got a pentium overdrive and could run it but he ran it at slightly above stamp size on screen lol. I did a lot of gaming on my 486dx2 66mhz. All the way till I got a and k6.

@jun_aka_pekto said:

@behardy24 said:

@jun_aka_pekto said:

Sweet setup man, even for today.

He He. Not really. Although the photo was taken in 1993, the PC itself was from 1992. The CPU was an AMD 386DX-40 with math coprocessor. It ran Doom fine at low-res. It was starting to chug with either the higher res setting or fullscreen setting. Doom was great for having dynamically changeable screen sizes. I had to reduce the playable area similar to the image below. It took an Intel 486 to play Doom at max settings.

As for the rest of my setup..... The monitor was a 14" Packard Hell with a max res of 640x480. The sound card was a Soundblaster Pro. That PC did have a 1x CD-ROM which was state of the art for the time. Otherwise, the PC was pretty low-end by 1993. CPU progress was very rapid compared to today. In 1993, consumers had their choice of CPUs ranging from a 386DX-40 to the 486 to the 486DX2 to the first Pentiums. Most people simply couldn't keep up. I went with a 486DX2 in 1994 which was quite decent until Quake was released.

Edit: I took the photo in the first place because of the new CD-ROM drive. ☺

Doom as I played it on my 386 vs Doom as it should have been.

ah, the memories.