RetroTech: Vintage Gadgets

Twelve working machines from 1920 to 2000. Play snake on a brick phone, shake an instant print, type a note, feed a pocket pet. Every exhibit hides a secret.

RetroTech is a small museum you can hold. Twelve machines from the last century, each one rebuilt as a working, touchable thing: the keys sink, the dials click, the paper rolls, the tape squeals when you rewind.

Please do touch.

THE PARLOUR (1920–1959) • Typewriter — nine lines on an index card, a bell at the margin, correction fluid for your mistakes. Save or share the page. • Rotary — dial with your finger and listen to the pulses go home. Some numbers answer. • Television — turn the dial, drag the ears for a picture. Channel 3 is you.

THE DEN (1960–1979) • Sketch Screen — two knobs, one line. Shake your phone to erase. Share your drawing. • Flip Clock — a real alarm clock with cards that flick over. Set it and it rings even when the app is closed. • Instant Camera — point, press, and shake the print while it develops. Flip it round for a selfie. Save or share the framed print. • Cassette Player — your own music library on a tape, with proper rewind and fast-forward, or the built-in demo tape.

THE ARCADE (1980–2000) • Handheld — falling blocks in four shades of green, with an old code on the title screen. • Pager — pages arrive while you're away; compose one on the keypad and send it as a real text. • Pocket Pet — hatch it, feed it, play with it, let it sleep. It remembers you between visits (and notices when you don't). • Graph Calc — sums, graphs, and a few things the manual never mentioned. • The Brick — the phone that survived everything, with the snake that keeps getting longer.

EVERY PIECE HIDES A SECRET Twenty-five of them. Press and hold any piece on the shelf to read its museum card: a few lines of history and some cryptic notes on what to try. A brass plaque drops in when you find one.

MADE WITH CARE • Real haptics and synthesized sound for every key, dial and lever. • Smooth on 120Hz screens; respects Reduce Motion and VoiceOver. • Nothing leaves your phone. No account, no ads, no tracking, no analytics. The camera is used only inside the camera and TV exhibits, your music only inside the cassette player, and texts go through your own Messages app.

Twelve machines, all in working order. Mind the fingerprints.