The Formula works on hardware. We have proof. ACEMAGIC took one look at the original 1985 Nintendo Entertainment System, nodded slowly, and stuffed an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 inside the shell: 12 cores, 24 threads, 5.1GHz boost, integrated Radeon 890M graphics, 32GB of DDR5, a 1TB NVMe SSD, Wi-Fi 7, and a USB4 port. The Retro X5 looks like a prop from your childhood game shelf. It plays Cyberpunk 2077 at 60fps. That is, objectively, the funniest sentence I have written this year.

The design pulls the NES colorway without crossing into licensed territory: grey plastic, a bright red power button, functional mechanical grille vents, and zero RGB lighting screaming “GAMER” at you from across the room. It ships with RetroPlay Box, a built-in launcher that sets up your emulators without the usual three-hour Friday-night yak-shaving session. The tool-free snap-fit lid means you can crack it open and swap RAM like a cartridge. I respect this deeply and I will not apologize.

Is it a $1,049 conversation piece that Nintendo’s lawyers are almost certainly side-eyeing? Yes. Do I care? The Doctor does not care. The Omega7Red Formulae has been validating exactly this kind of decision since before the Pi-Day incident. Slap modern silicon into a retro shell, ship it with a red power button, and call it transformation. That is literally the job. Good job, high-5.

Via: HotHardware

The Commodore Callback 8020 is a flip phone. A FLIP PHONE. With a T9 keypad, a dome LED that glows instead of screaming notifications at you, and SID chiptune ringtones because of course. It runs Sailfish OS (Linux, de-Googled, Android app compatible) and it hard-blocks social media and browsers at the system level using patent-pending technology, which is the most 2026 sentence I have ever written. The colorways are called things like “BASIC Beige” and “ProtoPET White” and one of them ships with a 24k gold-plated Commodore C= key, and honestly? The Doctor approves of the aesthetic choices, even if everything else is [expletive deleted] insane.

Here is the part where I have to say the quiet part out loud: this is NOT Jack Tramiel’s Commodore. It’s a YouTuber who bought the trademarks and hired some old-timers, which is basically someone buying the Batmobile and calling themselves Batman. That said, the thing they built is legitimately interesting: $499 for a phone whose entire value proposition is that it makes smartphone usage annoying enough that you stop doing it. You are paying five hundred dollars for friction. That is either the stupidest or most brilliant product pitch since they put a “close door” button in elevators that doesn’t actually work. Pre-orders open June 30th. Shipping targets Q4 2026. In BASIC Beige, naturally.

My C64 and I spent entire summers on BBSes racking up long-distance bills my parents still don’t know about. The SID chip was the sound of God. So when Commodore (or whoever this is now) puts SID ringtones on a phone designed to cure you of your screen addiction… I don’t know whether to load a disk or throw it across the room. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal.

Via: Tom’s Hardware / Commodore

Gentlefolk of the Punk-iverse, a moment of your time. You know the goggles. The goggles. The ones glued to every top hat at every convention since 2003, doing precisely nothing except looking magnificent. The Doctor has always defended them on aesthetic grounds alone. Well. ASUS ROG and XREAL have gone and run those goggles through some kind of Formula of their own, because the ROG XREAL R1 is a 91-gram pair of AR glasses that projects a 171-inch virtual Micro-OLED screen directly into your eyeballs at 240Hz with a 0.01ms response time. They have electrochromic lenses that auto-tint when you look at the screen and go clear when you look away. They weigh less than a decent pocket watch. They have Bose spatial audio built in. The future has finally caught up to the cosplay.

Is $849 a lot for goggles? Yes. Is it less than the steam-powered difference engine you were going to build in your garage? Also yes. The Doctor is putting this through the Omega7Red Formulae right now: feed in “gaming AR glasses,” crank the Formula, and what emerges is a CyberPunk street samurai overlaid on a SteamPunk airship navigator, both of them seeing things the rest of the crowd simply cannot. That’s not a product description, that’s a destiny. Expect them to ship July 2026, so you have exactly enough time to add a few gears and call it a con build. Good job, high-5.

Via: ASUS ROG Press Room

So apparently Gen Z is buying Polaroid cameras, carrying MP3 players, and purchasing physical CDs in 2026 because they want to, quote, “slow down” and “own their media.” I need everyone to pause and appreciate what just happened here. The generation that was handed the internet at birth, a supercomputer in every pocket, and the collective sum of human knowledge on demand has looked at all of that and said: “No thank you, I’d prefer the format that melts in a hot car.” Good job, high-5! Welcome to literally every argument I’ve been making since 1997.

Here’s the thing, though: the Doctor is not going to mock this. I’m going to validate it. These kids stumbled backward into the correct answer. Physical media is real. Streaming is renting someone else’s permission slip to your own memories. The Commodore 64 crowd (that’s us, you know who you are) never needed a think piece to figure that out, but hey, if it takes a generation of zoomers panic-buying Walkmans to make the point stick, I’ll take the win. The Omega7Red Formulae has always run on physical, tangible, real objects: brass gears, glass lenses, riveted copper plating. Bits evaporate. Objects endure.

The Polaroid Go Generation 3 is the specific artifact making the rounds this month, a miniature instant camera aimed squarely at the analog-curious crowd. It is, objectively, the least efficient way to take a photograph in the year 2026, and I mean that as a compliment. Sometimes the friction is the point. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal, kids, but a physical print of a good moment comes close.

Via: BGR / SlashGear

Apple turns 50 this year, and instead of doing anything reasonable like throwing a party or minting commemorative coins, the universe decided to let 8BitDo apply the Omega7Red Formulae to the Apple II and turn it into a mechanical keyboard. The result: the Retro 68 AP50th Limited Edition, a 68-key slab machined entirely from aluminum alloy, finished in that sacred warm beige-and-brown colorway that haunts every Gen X kid who ever typed PRINT "HELLO WORLD" on a 1MHz 6502 and felt like a god. Five hundred dollars. Ships this month. Limited quantities. Of course it is.

Here is what gets me: every external surface is aluminum, chassis, keycaps, buttons, all of it, plus a 6,500mAh battery rated at 300 hours per charge. A KEYBOARD with a 300-hour battery. My Commodore 64 power brick would have wept. It also ships with a certificate of collection, which is either the classiest thing in consumer electronics or the most [expletive deleted] nerdy flex I have ever seen, and I say that as a man who has an Omega Formulae framed on his wall. The Doctor approves. Grudgingly, because five hundred dollars, but he approves.

If you missed the Apple II the first time around: it was 1977, Steve Wozniak built a computer that ordinary humans could actually plug into a TV and use, and it kickstarted the entire PC revolution. That machine deserves a monument. This is pretty much a monument you can type on. Go grab it before it sells out and you spend the next decade explaining to people at conventions why you paid $800 for one on eBay. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal.

Via: The Gadgeteer / 8BitDo Store

You can thank “batman-n-bananas” (or just Tasha) on Deviant Art for this one.  We really like it when people use that imagination to make things that poke holes in science, and just imagine all the science we’ll get out of this baby.  At least one or two good train wrecks, and a falling airship.  That’s not a tragedy, that’s science – with holes.  Good job Tasha, high-5!

“Alright this next test may involve trace amounts of time travel. So word of advice: if you meet yourself on the testing track don’t make eye contact. Lab boys tell me that’ll wipe out time – entirely. Forward and backward. So do both of yourselves a favor and let that handsome devil go about his business.”

 As usual, click on the image and then zoom in to see detail.

It’s a steam-driven turn-table.  I wonder how good it is.  You see, I have an audiophile speaker business and I’m always into the high-end stuff.  I’d like to hook it up to my tube-amp and my Brodmann Acoustics Vienna Classic VC7 speakers ($26,000/pair).

Built by a New Zealand based steampunk artist called Asciimation, the turntable features a a small steam engine he built from spare bits he had in his garage, The platter speed is controlled by a servo which uses a coil to read six magnets under the platter, with everything controlled by an Anduino processor.

Somebody buy it for me and I’ll hook it up to my stuff and let you know.

Via: DVICE

Available in March 2011 for a mere $76,000, the Miluira electric car is your modern Green solution for all your 19th century automotive needs.  Capable of holding one 1-person and reaching speeds of an incredible 37MPH, you’ll be the envy of every Steampunker within its 21-mile range.

Actually, this car might even be a practical solution for local commuting.  The price tag is a bit steep for me but might be worth it to those with the bread to spread.  As for its top speed:  If you’re important enough, people will wait for you.

More accurately, IF blogger John Graham-Cumming can raise a mere $640,000 then the Charles Babbage Analytical Engine will be built in its entirety.  The Analytical Engine is superior to the Difference Engine (it can calculate Pi), and no one has ever fully built one before.

You got to love these crazy mad scientist types.  The engine itself is in effect a real computer complete with the mechanical equivalents of a CPU, memory, microcode, printer, and program cards.  If it actually works, it’ll be a triumph in engineering, and a testament to the genius of Charles Babbage.  So, if you want to help then visit Plan 28 and donate.

Perfect for those close-quarters defense situations where only one shot is required and your opponent is standing perfectly still while you shoot them in the neck.