The highlight of this year's hacking conference is Doom running at 50 frames per second on a badge worn by Def Con attendees.

In the world of electronics, you can be sure that someone will find a way to make it run Doom. In the case of the Def Con event this year, a popular and long-running hacking conference, it was the badge that all attendees received.

Of course, given the nature of the event, the badge isn't just a mere piece of plastic--it's more of a Tamagochi-Gameboy-cross, with a little screen, speakers, and a Raspberry Pi RP2350 microcontroller. Def Con badges are very popular because they can be hacked, modified, and repurposed in many ways. Getting one to run Doom seemed like a must.

The blog for the project by coder Kilograham explains that it wasn't an easy task. The code for the port can be found on their GitHub page. You can also see a short clip of the port in action thanks to X user, stacksmashing.

The original code for Doom was written to run on x86 chips with DOS. Porting it to a relatively modern dual-core Arm-based SoC (system-on chip) with only 256 kB RAM and 2 MB flash storage requires significant changes to both the routines and the interface.

It's a remarkable feat of programming, and the highlight of Def Con. Especially in light of all the controversy surrounding the initial development and manufacture of the badges.

The Register reported that Dmitry Grinberg was physically escorted out of the event after he gave a talk on the project. The contracted manufacturer, Entropic Engineering released a statement about all the things that went wrong during the entire process.

"We are confused and disappointed by the decisions made by the conference institutionally this year. We were promised, in addition to the agreed-upon monetary compensation (which has only been partially provided), visibility and representation as contributors and supporters to the community," wrote Matthew Pang, co-founder and chief technology officer.

"Badges were promised for the team and conference attendance, participation in the Badge Talk, and credit on announcements, signage and the Badge Case in return for work performed...We were particularly hurt and confused by conference's decision to revoke everything above."

Grinberg told The Register, "[T]he chip-pre-flashing deadline had been missed... and each badge of 29,770 had to be manually programmed by volunteers." I imagine that the attendees would have enjoyed the idea of this, but given that each person paid at least $460 for entry to the conference, it is possible that some choice words were uttered by the hall.

At some point, it's expected that all the issues with the badge will be resolved. The updated firmware will then be released on its website. If you have one, and want to play some games on it then Kilograham’s Doom port would be the obvious choice.