Hackaday Retrocomputing Contest 2026
Hackaday and DigiKey give a $150 gift certificate to each of three favorite retrocomputing projects. Entries close on October 27, 2026.
The Hackaday Retrocomputing Contest 2026 invites people to build, restore or program old computers and document the work. Hackaday picks three favorites, and each receives a $150 gift certificate from the contest sponsor, DigiKey.
Anyone can enter. Employees and contractors of DigiKey, Supply Frame, Siemens and Arduino, and their immediate family members, are not eligible to win.
To enter, you open a project on Hackaday.io that describes your retrocomputing work and submit it to the contest. Hackaday asks for good documentation so that readers can follow along and learn from the project.
The contest opened on August 18, 2026 at 10:00 am PDT. The deadline is Tuesday, October 27, 2026 at 10:00 pm PDT.
Four categories guide the honorable mentions: Old Iron for restoring and running original hardware, Modern Retro for emulations and modern reimaginings of old designs, Retro-Modern for connecting classic machines to today's internet, and Coding Like It's 1999 for new software written for legacy systems.