What happens when a hacker conference badge grows up into a full palmtop computer you can actually live with? The Tanmatsu is the answer, and after a year in the wild it finally has the stable operating system and growing app library to back up its ambitious hardware.
Born in the Dutch badge scene, the Tanmatsu (Japanese for "terminal") is a pocketable, open-source handheld built around Espressif's ESP32-P4 application processor. The body is a tidy sandwich of PCB and 3D-printed PETG, with a silicone QWERTY keyboard on the front face and a crisp 800x480 MIPI DSI display up top. That keyboard moulding will look familiar to badge fans, since it is shared with other maker devices. Boot it up and a synthwave splash screen drops you into a graphical launcher, complete with status icons for SD card, Wi-Fi, and battery, an app grid, and on-screen shortcut hints along the bottom.
What's under the hood?
The ESP32-P4 brings two 400MHz RISC-V cores paired with 32MB of PSRAM and 16MB of flash, and a chunky 2500mAh LiPo keeps it running with USB-C charging. Expansion is where it gets fun: a Qwiic connector, a PMOD and SAO-capable port, a Raspberry Pi-compatible CSI camera header under the rear cover, and a large add-on socket that breaks out the rest of the signals. Apps arrive through an on-device repository in classic badge.team fashion, and can be either MicroPython scripts or code compiled straight for the P4. It is a launcher rather than a multitasking desktop, so each app takes over the screen when it runs. One thoughtful touch: it remembers multiple Wi-Fi networks instead of making you re-enter credentials everywhere you go.
Try it yourself
Because the whole thing is open source, you don't have to wait for one to land on your desk. The commercial Tanmatsu is sold by its designer Renze Nicolai, while the community-built Konsool is its close cousin, and the mechanical files, electronics, and firmware are all published for you to study or fork. If you have been eyeing the ESP32-P4 for a build of your own, this is a working reference design worth pulling apart before you reach for the soldering iron.
Originally published on blog.circuit.rocks.
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