Retro Memories 26 addon

A retro-inspired addon for badges.

Releasing at DEF CON 34.

Addon sales enable us to give more of these away for free to nerds, teachers, and learners at DEF CON. Thank you for supporting us to support others.

Available in two art variants:

• Retro Technology: Vector-drawn retro PC compatible! Drawn by nerds with no art skills!
• Ultra Compact: Compact Mac? Not small enough. How about just a little smaller?
  
  

Comes with three totally different firmwares!

• a classic Mac 68K emulator set up to run After Dark 2.0. Watch the addon boot and start up authentic screensavers from the 80s! Show off those flying toasters at con!
• A port of true's nametag firmware, this time with a taller screen!
  • Letters are always upright no matter the orientation
  • Various animations and effects
  • Has newly programmed retro screensavers
  • Should support two-line names by DEF CON
  • Power optimized
• edit Added July 14th: ported DooM. so now there's 3 firmwares. enjoy doom.
  • Demo mode only for now
  • Scaled, sharpened, gamma adjusted, and line-based grayscale hacked for the 1-bit-per-pixel OLED
  • Controllable by a ...magnet? (work in progress)

Source code for all firmware is available. Code and schematic links will be published closer to con, once they're more complete and polished.

Specs

• RP2350 w/4MiB flash
  • Power optimized firmwares; total system power draw (including OLED) of mac 68K emulator ~14-22mA.
    • Final HW power draw expecting even LOWER than this.
    • DooM higher, Nametag lowest power draw
• 128x64 1bpp OLED
  • Mac is hacked to 128x72 for pure pixel-accurate nostalgia
• 4x rear-firing RGBLED for shirt and badge bling aesthetic
• 4x rear-mounted buttons for programming the nametag
• Accelerometer, magnetometer
  • Used for name orientation, retro screensavers
  • Will add this data to mac emulator memory space upon request; custom DC34 mac screensaver anyone?
• 8KiB EEPROM for configuration storage
  • Updating firmware will not wipe your settings
• Ambient light detection
• USB Type C (data and power)
• Built-in boost converter; should work with badges having out-of-spec power delivery (ahem official DC34 badge cough cough)
• Hole for mini retention lanyard (lanyard included)
  • Clip your shit and don't lose it!
    
    

Project Status

• Mac emulator firmware is near 100% done.
• DooM plays in demo mode. Magnet control code written but untested and may not work.
• Nametag firmware is about 50%.
  • Initial porting done; nametag technically works
  • Screensavers written
  • RGBLED program editor needs completed
• All hardware is DESIGNED and being fabricated NOW!
  • Photos are renders; waiting for real hardware.
  • Ultra Compact arrives by the 25th
  • Retro Technology arrival TBD
  • No time for prototypes, one and done! By design, not procrastination! lol
  • No features are guaranteed until implemented and tested

If for some reason the hardware doesn't work out or arrive in time, refunds will be offered.

Pickup

This listing is for DEF CON 34 PICKUP ONLY. Pickup locations TBD but will include the Retro Tech area.

Sales tax is included in the price.

If you won't be at DEF CON 34, don't order now. Units are reserved for shipping after the con and will be available at true's webstore. Sign up to get notified and we'll let you know when that's ready.

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UPDATES

20260715: wrote code to use a magnet as a controller to play doom. no promises this works.

20260716: wasted 12 hours trying to figure out a pico-sdk bug. all 3 firmwares will now be loaded at once, switchable (with persistence) by holding a button at boot.

20260722: Expecting Ultra Compact boards tomorrow. Photos of real hardware soon!