Someone turned an Apple II monitor into a flight tracker using an ESP32

Credit: Virtual-Bet-4566 Published Nov 10, 2026, 12:45 AM EST Simon is a Computer Science BSc graduate who has been writing about technology since 2014, and using Windows machines since 3.1. After working for an indie game studio and acting as the family's go-to technician for all computer issues, he found his passion for writing and decided to use his skill set to write about all things tech. Since beginning his writing career, he has written for many different publications such as WorldStart, Listverse, and MakeTechEasier. However, after finding his home at MakeUseOf in February 2019, he would eventually move on to its sister site, XDA, to bring the latest and greatest in Windows, Linux, and DIY electronics. Sign in to your XDA account We've covered all kinds of ESP32 projects here on XDA, but two of the most common are restoring old tech to life and building flight trackers. But what if you could do both at the same time? Such is the case with this cool ESP32 project that takes an old Apple II monitor and turns it into a real-time eye in the sky. The best part is, the display looks like something that would come right out of the 80s, and I'm a little jealous. This ESP32-powered flight tracker puts live data on a monitor that's older than I am Over on the ESP32 subreddit, user Virtual-Bet-4566 did a show-and-tell with their cool retro flight tracker. While they didn't share the source code, they were more than happy to discuss how they got this done. The entire thing runs off an ESP32-WROOM-32, which was chosen because it has Wi-Fi by default and can make composite video from GPIO25 thanks to its DAC. This means there's no need for a converter in the middle; Virtual-Bet-4566 says all they needed to do was wire up the video and the ground to the RCA input on the monitor, and they were good to go. For the data, Virtual-Bet-4566 pulls from a view source: "It pulls live positions from online ADS-B feeds and retrieves actual aircraft photos from Planespotters.net. I've added radar and map views, flight details, zoom controls and the ability to track individual flights. Settings are controlled through a Wi-Fi web interface." As it turns out, wiring up a monitor from the 80s to a board in the current era has its problems, with the creator claiming that getting the composite looking right on the screen and keeping the data current without messing up the display were key issues. However, it turns out the limited RAM on the ESP32 was also an obstacle, so it wasn't totally the screen's fault.