Def Con attendees were surprised this year, as their badges are fully operational Gameboy emulators.
Mar Williams built the badge out of the new Raspberry Pi microcontroller chip, the RP2350. The circuit design was even done by Raspberry Pi’s engineering partner, Entropic.
Williams had previously built last year’s Def Con badge, which they gave a full talk on.
The badge comes with a cute plastic case, shaped like a cat. It also has an SD card with “goodies for your PC”.
now officially my favorite badge (previous fav was DC 27) pic.twitter.com/hasv0yrEZC
— Helen (of Tor) @ DEF CON (@h313n_0f_t0r) August 9, 2024
It’s a collaborative effort, parts of Def Con are. The emulator running on the RP 2350 is a previously unreleased “bare-metal” port of the emulator uGB. Created by Dmitry.GR, uGB runs a little differently from something you’d find on current handhelds.
uGB was originally released for the failed Palm smartphone line. In their blog, Dmitry writes about the work of bringing the app over to the tiny chip.
It utilizes the upgraded Raspberry Pi chip to play back Gameboy games, with one core providing upscaling while the other plays the game. uGB doesn’t appear to be officially available for download right now, outside of its original release on PalmOS.
Dmitry also points out that the RP 2350 is capable of running PalmOS too.
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The actual game on the badge is made with GB Studio. A free game-making app, GB Studio aims to provide potential developers with the tools to recreate that Gameboy feel.
Of course, with Def Con being the convention for hackers, the game has already been hacked.
I created https://t.co/MRpdB1tYvt which make's it easier for #DEFCON32 attendees to flash their badge with custom GB ROMs, as well as provide a way to revert to original firmware.We also have a patched copy of the DEF CON game that is 100% completed with some fun cheats. https://t.co/D5zENKP348
— Jaku 🐀 (@Jaku) August 9, 2024
On X/Twitter, user Jaku managed to transfer the ROM over to an official Gameboy Color. They even managed to get it working on an original Gameboy, but found it was too glitchy.
The game onboard the device is themed around Def Con, which is also available to download from Jaku. However, the game has been modified to unlock everything from the outset.
Jaku has also already created a website for users to flash the badge with their own software and ROMs.
Creator Mar Williams is scheduled to talk later today, Friday, August 9. We’ll be sure to update this post with the talk after it airs.