Sounds exactly like any entrepreneurial sales strategy I have ever heard.

Going a little more upscale, more than just a 555, is NEOther 8/16 bit processor supported by sdcc.

That's quite a big list, the most iconic of all would be the 6502.

The number of iconic computers that used it is off the charts. That's a big retro market right there.

Compiler: cc65 or something like that (google 6502 sdcc it comes up)

And what is particularly awesome is, its been reverse engineered

Turns out that the 6502 is a superscalar design! (wtf??)

:)

Guy who made it literally did the entire layout in his head, then drew out some masks on paper, blew them up to 1m sq, and hand dug out the lithographic masks from 1sq m pieces of linoleum!

Amazing story, totally iconic. Backstory like that will generate huge interest and PR that is precisely the kind of wow factor that allows it to go viral on social media.

"Hey look what I found, these crazy ppl r redoin the 6502, totally retro, an the real version wuz done by hand on lino, no software CAD tools at all, wtf, lolz"

:)