Supercon 2024: Show Off Your Unique Display Tech

Some people go to conferences for the networking. Some go for the talks. And some of us go because we heard
there might be a room full of glowing numbers, clacking dots, shimmering e-paper, and at least one project that
makes you whisper, “That shouldn’t work… but it absolutely does.”

Hackaday Supercon 2024 leaned hard into that last category with a special exhibit celebrating display technology
past and present. The message was simple: if you’ve got a display that’s rare, weird, gorgeous, hilariously overbuilt,
or just plain different, bring it (or send it) and let it steal the spotlight.

What “Supercon 2024” Really Means (Hint: It’s Not a Trade Show)

Hackaday Superconference (aka “Supercon”) is a maker-heavy, hardware-first gathering where the best moments
don’t always happen on a stage. They happen when someone opens a pelican case, flips a switch, and suddenly
your brain is trying to remember the last time you saw a vacuum fluorescent display outside a vintage calculator.

Supercon 2024 ran November 1–3 in Pasadena, California at Supplyframe’s DesignLaban environment that’s basically
“lab meets gallery,” which is exactly the right vibe for a display exhibit. If you’re going to celebrate display tech,
you want a place where people can walk up close, ask questions, and get inspired to build their own version by Sunday.

The Display Exhibit: A Museum Where You’re Allowed to Touch the Button

The Supercon 2024 display push wasn’t just “bring your cool thing.” The exhibit was designed to be a tribute to the
full timeline of human-visible output: classic tubes, mechanical indicators, modern low-power panels, accessibility tech,
and experimental “is it a screen or is it sorcery?” builds.

The organizers called for submissions by mid-September and planned to keep the exhibit running throughout November,
with items treated as loans and returned afterward. The goal was also refreshingly practical: show the displays powered on
and operational whenever possible. In other words, not just “here’s a rare part,” but “here’s what it looks like when it’s alive.”

What Counts as “Unique Display Tech” (And Why This Is Your Moment)

“Unique” doesn’t necessarily mean expensive. It means memorable. It means your display starts a conversation with strangers
who quickly become collaborators. It means someone says, “Wait… how are you driving that?” and you get to respond with
the universal language of makers: a napkin diagram.

Below are the kinds of displays that fit the spirit of Supercon 2024plus practical advice to make them demo-ready.

Category 1: Glorious Retro Glow (Because Aesthetics Matter)

Nixie Tubes: The Warm Neon Flex

Nixies aren’t just displaysthey’re mood lighting for people who think datasheets are bedtime stories. That iconic orange glow
is a cold-cathode neon discharge shaped into digits, and it feels like time travel every time it lights.

If you’re showing a Nixie build, the “wow” factor is automatic. Your job is to make it safe and stable:

• Respect high voltage. Enclose and label HV sections, strain-relief cables, and avoid exposed conductors.
• Show the system, not just the tubes. People love seeing your driver strategy (multiplexing, shift regs, HV drivers).
• Give it a story. “This was pulled from surplus” or “I built a clock, then it escalated” is peak Supercon energy.

Numitrons & Segmented LEDs: The “Retro, But Make It Practical” Option

Segment displays are the workhorses of readable output: clocks, meters, counters, dashboards. But the magic happens when you use them
for something unexpectedlike rendering simplified animations, scrolling alphanumeric glyphs, or showing non-English segments and unusual fonts.

Want to make a segmented display feel like art? Try:

• Custom glyph sets (weather icons, tiny bar graphs, micro “emojis” made from segments).
• Deliberate “low-res design” aesthetics (think airport signage, industrial panels, sci-fi UI).
• Multiplexing done right (no flicker, clean brightness balance, readable under room lighting).

Vacuum Fluorescent Displays (VFDs): Crisp, Bright, and Underrated

VFDs are what happens when you want a tube-like display that’s bright, sharp, and strangely classy. They’ve lived in calculators,
dashboards, and appliancesthen got kicked out by cheaper LCDs. But as a maker display? They’re fantastic.

If you’re bringing a VFD demo, lean into the strengths:

• Brightness: VFDs read well from across a room.
• Character: Their “retro-future” look is instantly recognizable.
• Hack value: Repurposing old VFD hardware is an instant conversation starter.

Category 2: Low Power, High Style (E-Paper and Reflective Displays)

E-Paper / E-Ink: The Display That Wins by Doing Almost Nothing

E-paper is for builders who want a display that looks like printed ink, reads beautifully in daylight, and sips power like it’s trying
to make batteries last through winter. The key advantage is persistence: once the image is drawn, it can stay visible without continuous power.

Supercon-friendly e-paper demos tend to be “information objects” that feel oddly permanent:

• Workshop dashboards (tool status, queue boards, lab signage).
• Environmental monitors (temperature/humidity with a calm, minimalist UI).
• Retro “newspaper” displays (headlines, schedules, project notes, QR codes for docs).

Pro tip: e-paper’s slow refresh becomes a feature if you design for it. Make updates feel intentionallike flipping a pagerather than trying
to mimic a video screen.

Category 3: Big, Bold, and Blinky (LED Matrices Done Right)

RGB LED Matrices: Tiny Pixels, Huge Personality

LED matrices are the universal “maker billboard.” They can be as simple as a scrolling name tag or as wild as a synchronized animation wall.
They’re also a great “bridge” displayeasy to start, but deep enough for serious engineering (timing, refresh, DMA tricks, power distribution).

If you want your LED matrix build to feel Supercon-grade, focus on one of these angles:

• Legibility: Fonts that read across a room, smart contrast, no “blinding white” presets.
• Interaction: Knobs, capacitive touch, gestures, or sensor-driven visuals.
• Constraint art: Do something impressive with very low resolution (it’s harder than it looks).

Category 4: Mechanical Magic (Flip-Dot, Flip-Disc, and Physical Pixels)

Flip-Dot Displays: The Sound of Satisfaction

Flip-dot displays don’t just show informationthey announce it with a click. Each dot is a bistable mechanical pixel
that flips state and stays there. It’s the perfect mix of “industrial signage” and “kinetic sculpture.”

These are ideal for Supercon because they’re visual, audible, and endlessly explainable. People will ask:
“How does it latch?” “How do you address the dots?” “What’s your driver circuit?” And then suddenly you’re deep in a coil-pulse discussion with
someone you met three minutes ago.

Best demo moves:

• Run a short loop that alternates text, icons, and simple animations.
• Show a “diagnostic mode” so people can see addressing and scanning in action.
• Bring spare dots or a cutaway if you have itphysical internals are conference gold.

Category 5: Accessibility and Tactile Output (Displays You Can Feel)

Refreshable Braille Displays: Real Output for Real Users

If you want to show something that’s both technically fascinating and genuinely meaningful, refreshable braille displays belong in the conversation.
They convert digital text into tactile braille cells using tiny pins that raise and lower, functioning like a “tactile monitor.”

A Supercon-style demo here could be:

• A microcontroller-driven braille “ticker” for messages.
• A simple interface that turns sensor readings into tactile output.
• A discussion of how accessibility changes design decisions (latency, reliability, error states, input methods).

Category 6: Volumetric and “Wait… That’s 3D?” Displays

Volumetric / Voxel Displays: When a Screen Escapes the Screen

Volumetric displays create the illusion of a 3D object occupying real spaceoften by rapidly moving a display surface or projecting slices through a volume.
They’re mesmerizing in person, especially when they render something familiar (like a rotating skull, a tiny spacecraft, or a classic game reimagined in voxels).

If you’re bringing a volumetric demo, safety and presentation matter:

• Guard moving parts. Spinning elements need protection and clear signage.
• Show the “slice logic.” People love learning how 2D frames become 3D perception.
• Pick a killer demo scene. One perfect, stable animation beats five shaky ones.

How to Make Your Display “Conference-Proof”

The fastest way to lose a crowd is a display that boots into “it worked at home.” The fastest way to gain a crowd is a display that survives
constant attention, repeated button presses, and the occasional well-meaning person who will absolutely unplug the wrong cable.

Pack Like You’re Shipping to Your Future Self

• Label everything. Power, signal, polarity, voltage, “do not unplug,” “yes, this is supposed to be warm.”
• Bring spares. Cables, fuses, connectors, a backup microcontroller pre-flashed with known-good firmware.
• Default to a demo loop. Have an “attract mode” that runs without any input so your booth stays alive while you talk.

Make the Story Obvious

Put a small card next to the display that answers the top three questions:
What is it? What makes it special? What’s inside?
The less time people spend guessing, the more time they spend asking the fun questions.

Design for Interaction (Without Letting Interaction Break It)

The ideal Supercon demo invites hands-on play, but is robust against chaos. Good patterns include:

• A “safe” input set (one knob, two buttons, or a touch strip) with debouncing and timeouts.
• A reset button that returns to attract mode.
• Software limits that prevent users from selecting “the one mode that crashes everything.”

The Badge Angle: Supercon Loves Displays You Can Wear (Or Plug In)

Supercon badges aren’t just souvenirsthey’re platforms. In 2024, the badge ecosystem leaned into add-ons and I2C-based interaction,
encouraging makers to build functional SAOs (Simple Add-Ons) that go beyond decorative LEDs.

If you want maximum visibility for your display project, consider making a badge-friendly version:

• A tiny segment display SAO that shows sensor data, time, or message snippets.
• A miniature e-paper “name tag” module that updates occasionally and stays readable all day.
• A micro LED matrix add-on for icons, animations, or reactive patterns.

Bonus: badge add-ons have built-in social gravity. People see them in hallways, during talks, at lunch, and at the “what is that?” distance
where curiosity becomes inevitable.

Display Trends Worth Showing Off (Even If You Think They’re “Normal”)

Sometimes the most impressive display isn’t rareit’s thoughtfully used. At Supercon, builders tend to appreciate:

1) Purpose-Built Interfaces

A display that does one job perfectlylike a lab timer you can read across the room, or a power monitor that makes trends obviousoften wins over a
screen that tries to do everything.

2) Upcycling

Repurposed displays from old equipment (test gear, calculators, vehicles, appliances) feel like hacker archaeology. If your demo includes the
“before” story, you’ll keep a crowd.

3) Calm Tech

Not every display needs to shout. Subtle ambient displayse-paper status boards, slow-changing LED gradients, mechanical indicatorsfit the “always on,
never annoying” design philosophy that a lot of makers quietly love.

Conclusion: Bring the Weird Screen (Respectfully)

Supercon 2024’s display theme was a reminder that output is where engineering becomes human. Displays are the face of a project, the part people remember,
and the fastest route to a shared “whoa.”

So if you have a display that’s unusualold, new, mechanical, tactile, reflective, volumetric, or just delightfully impracticalgive it a stage.
Make it reliable, make it safe, make the story legible, and let the maker community do what it does best: get inspired, ask smarter questions,
and go build something even weirder.

Supercon 2024 Experience: What It Feels Like to Walk Into a Room Full of Displays (About )

Picture the moment you step into the display area at Supercon 2024: the lighting is half “gallery,” half “workbench,” and your eyes can’t decide what to
focus on first. Something in the corner is glowing in that unmistakable warm-orange way that instantly whispers “Nixie.” Nearby, a flip-dot panel clicks
like a polite typewriter with opinions. An LED matrix is doing the visual equivalent of a drum solobright, precise, and impossible to ignore.

The best part is that the room doesn’t feel like a museum where you’re afraid to breathe near the exhibits. It feels like a maker’s living room where
every object has a backstory, and the owner is standing right there, happy to explain how it works. Someone points to a VFD and says, “This came out of a
device older than my soldering iron,” and you can hear three different conversations begin at once: one about drivers, one about power supplies, and one
about where on earth you even find these parts anymore without selling a kidney.

You drift from table to table and notice how different “good displays” can be. One builder has an e-paper setup that barely changesjust a calm, high-contrast
dashboard that updates like it’s flipping a page. Another builder went the opposite direction, pushing pixels at high speed and challenging anyone nearby to
spot a flicker. A third is doing something that’s technically “a display,” but feels like kinetic sculpture: mechanical movement, visible constraints,
and a satisfying physicality you don’t get from a glass rectangle.

Then you hit the projects that make you stop mid-step. Maybe it’s a display with a font you’ve never seen beforeletters that look like they were designed
by an engineer who moonlights as a graphic artist. Maybe it’s a non-English segmented display that makes you realize how culturally specific “seven segment”
really is. Maybe it’s a tactile demo where the output isn’t light at all, and the entire conversation shifts to accessibility, usability, and what “interface”
means when your eyes aren’t the primary input.

The social dynamic is the secret sauce. People don’t just look; they compare notes. “How are you handling multiplexing?” “What’s your refresh strategy?”
“How do you keep noise out of the signal lines when the power draw spikes?” Someone sketches a quick fix on a scrap of paper, and suddenly you’ve witnessed
the most Supercon thing imaginable: a display exhibit accidentally turning into a design review.

By the end of the day, you realize the exhibit isn’t only about nostalgia or aesthetics. It’s about communicationbetween circuits and humans, and between
builders themselves. You leave with ideas you didn’t have that morning: a new way to present data, a new component to try, and a slightly dangerous confidence
that you, too, could build something that clicks, glows, flips, or shimmers… and maybe bring it back next year to blow someone else’s mind.