Retrocomputing is more than just hardware. It’s also a feel, a vibe, and [valkyrie0528]’s Retro Terminal Bartop Arcade Topper has it in spades.

Here’s how it happened. The gorgeous device you see in the image above in fact started out as a bartop arcade cabinet build. The front section — with arcade buttons and joystick — is a removable panel. While building it, the panel was uninstalled and [valkyrie0528] placed a keyboard in the empty recess to do some configuration. Sitting at the machine like that felt like being right back in the 80s, perched at an 8-bit home computer. Cue a visit from the Good Ideas Fairy.

Now, in addition to being an arcade cabinet, one can swap the arcade controls panel for a one that has a keyboard (clicky and mechanical, of course), touchpad, and small USB breakout. The result looks amazing either way. As an arcade machine it’s beautiful, and in retro terminal mode it’s simply gorgeous.

The icing on the cake is [valkyrie0528]’s use of cool-retro-term as the terminal emulator, and there’s even a widescreen wallpaper accompanying it that puts an image of two 5.25″ floppy drives to the side. If you like that idea, you can download the wallpaper file from the project page for your own use.

There’s still time to enter our 2026 Retrocomputing Challenge, so if you find yourself inspired and want to show off your own take of things, there’s no time to lose!