A Precisely Elegant Cyberdeck Handheld

February 27, 2025 by Donald Papp 15 Comments

[Nicholas LaBonte] shows off a Cyberdeck Handheld that demonstrates just how good something can look when care and attention goes into the design and fabrication. He wanted to make something that blended cyberpunk and nautical aesthetics with a compact and elegant design, and we think he absolutely succeeded.

On the inside is a Raspberry Pi and an RTL-SDR. The back of the unit is machined from hardwood, and sports a bronze heat sink for the Raspberry Pi. The front has a prominent red PSP joystick for mouse input and a custom keyboard. The keyboard is especially interesting. On the inside it’s a custom PCB with tactile switches and a ATmega32U4 running QMK firmware — a popular choice for DIY keyboards — and presents to the host as a regular USB HID device.

The keys are on a single plate of little tabs, one for each key, that sits between the front panel and press on the tact switches inside.

How did he make those slick-looking keys? It’s actually a single plate that sits between the front panel and the switches themselves. [Nicholas] used a sheet of polymer with a faux-aluminum look to it and machined it down, leaving metal-looking keys with engraved symbols as tabs in a single panel. It looks really good, although [Nicholas] already has some ideas about improving it.

On the right side is the power button and charging port, and astute readers may spot that the power button is where a double-stack of USB ports would normally be on a Raspberry Pi 5. [Nicholas] removed the physical connectors, saving some space and connecting the USB ports internally to the keyboard and SDR.

As mentioned, [Nicholas] is already full of ideas for improvements. The bronze heat sink isn’t as effective as he’d like, the SDR could use some extra shielding, and the sounds the keyboard ends up making could use some work. Believe it or not, there’s still room to spare inside the unit and he’d maybe like to figure out a way to add a camera, GPS receiver, or maybe a 4G modem. We can’t wait! Get a good look for yourself in the video, embedded below.

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Hackaday Podcast Episode 297: Prusa Eschews Open Source Hardware, The Lemontron Prints Upside-Down, And The Vecdec Cyberdeck Does Minority Report

November 22, 2024 by Kristina Panos 1 Comment

This week on the Podcast, Hackaday’s Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos joined forces to bring you the latest news, mystery sound, and of course, a big bunch of hacks from the previous week.

First up in the news: Elliot was at Electronica and spotted a wild Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5. And just as excitingly, FreeCAD has finally reached version 1.0, which means it’s stable and ready for real work.

Kristina is getting tired of losing at What’s That Sound, so she’ll have to come up with some to stump you all. Can you get this week’s sound? If you can, and your number comes up, you get a special Hackaday Podcast t-shirt.

Then it’s on to the hacks and such, but first, there’s even more news and opinion to be had in Tom’s review of Prusa’s new printer, which happens to be closed-source. Then we’ll discuss another printer that prints upside-down, an elegant cyberdeck, and a cyberpunk pocket watch. Finally, we talk about the Great Redbox Cleanup, and take a look at man-made stalactites.

Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Download in DRM-free MP3 and savor at your leisure.

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The Vecdec Cyberdeck Is More Than A Pretty Case

November 19, 2024 by Tom Nardi 27 Comments

A common criticism we hear of cyberdecks is that functionality too often takes a backseat to aesthetics — in other words, they might look awesome, but they aren’t the kind of thing you’re likely to use a daily driver. It’s not an assessment that we necessarily disagree with, though we also don’t hold it against anyone if they’re more interested in honing their build’s retro-futuristic looks than its computational potential.

That said, when a build comes along that manages to strike a balance between style and function, we certainly take notice. The vecdec, built by [svenscore] is a perfect example. We actually came across this one in the Desert of the Real, also known as the outskirts of Philadelphia, while we stalked the chillout room at JawnCon 0x1. When everyone else in the room is using a gleaming MacBook or a beat-up ThinkPad, its wildly unconventional design certainly grabs your attention. But spend a bit of time checking the hardware out and chatting with its creator, and you realize it’s not just some cyberpunk prop.

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The Woodworker’s Cyberdeck

October 28, 2024 by Lewin Day 9 Comments

Computers were supposed to be personal, customizable, and cool. At times, in this cold modern world, we forget that. However, the cyberdeck scene is chock full of people building creative, original computers that suit their own tastes, aesthetics, and needs. [DIY Tinkerer] is one such individual, and he made the most of his woodworking skills when it came time to build his own cyberdeck!

The technological basics are along the lines of what we’re used to in this field. The build is based around a Raspberry Pi 4, with [DIY Tinkerer] selecting an 8 GB model for his needs. It’s paired with a 9000 mAh onboard battery, and there’s a power jack on the front to let the thing run on anything from 5 to 20 volts DC. For ease of use, there’s a multi-memory card reader and several USB 3 ports available.

The rest of the video focuses on the woodworking side of things. [DIY Tinkerer] shows us how he managed to build a new housing out of a rugged plastic case that would also be practical to use. The final product is both functional and attractive, and comes with an oscilloscope built in to boot! It came a long way from his earlier build, too.

We’ve seen a great load of cyberdeck builds over the years.

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VR Headset With HDMI Input Invites A New Kind Of Cyberdeck

September 1, 2024 by Donald Papp 30 Comments

Meta’s Quest VR headset recently got the ability to accept and display video over USB-C, and it’s started some gears turning in folks’ heads. [Ian Hamilton] put together a quick concept machine consisting of a Raspberry Pi 400 that uses a VR headset as its monitor, which sure seems like the bones of a new breed of cyberdeck.

With passthrough on, one still sees the outside world.

The computer-in-a-keyboard nature of the Pi 400 means that little more than a mouse and the VR headset are needed to get a functional computing environment. Well, that and some cables and adapters.

What’s compelling about this is that the VR headset is much more than just a glorified monitor. In the VR environment, the external video source (in this case, the Raspberry Pi) is displayed in a window just like any other application. Pass-through can also be turned on, so that the headset’s external cameras display one’s surroundings as background. This means there’s no loss of environmental awareness while using the rig.

[Note: the following has been updated for clarity and after some hands-on testing] Video over USB-C is technically DisplayPort altmode, and both the video source and the USB-C cable have to support it. In [Ian]’s case, the Raspberry Pi 400 outputs HDMI and he uses a Shadowcast 2 capture card to accept HDMI on one end and outputs video over USB-C on the other.

Here’s how it works: the Quest has a single USB-C port on the side, and an app (somewhat oddly named “Meta Quest HDMI link”) running on the headset takes care of accepting video over USB and displaying it in a window within the headset. The video signal expected is UVC (or USB Video Class), which is what most USB webcams and other video devices output. (There’s another way to do video over USB-C which is technically DisplayPort altmode, and both the video source and the USB-C cable have to support it. That is not what’s being used here; the Quest does not support this format. Neither is it accepting HDMI directly.) In [Ian]’s case, the Raspberry Pi 400 outputs HDMI and he uses a Shadowcast 2 capture card to accept HDMI on one end and output UVC video on the other, which is then fed into the Quest over a USB-C cable.

As a concept it’s an interesting one for sure. Perhaps we’ll see decks of this nature in our next cyberdeck contest?

Kali Cyberdeck Looks The Business

August 7, 2024 by Dan Maloney 17 Comments

Even though we somewhat uncharacteristically don’t have a cyberdeck contest currently underway, there’s never a bad time to get your [Gibson] on. That’s especially true when fate hands you an enclosure as perfect as the one that inspired this very compact Kali Linux cyberdeck.

Now, that’s not to say that we don’t love larger cyberdecks, of course. The ones built into Pelican-style shipping containers are particularly attractive, and it’s hard to argue against their practicality. But when [Hans Jørgen Grimstad], who somehow just sounds like a person who should be building cyberdecks, found a new-old-stock stash of US Army Signal Corps spare parts kits from the 1950s, designation CY-684/GR, he just had to spring into action. After carefully gutting the metal case of the dividers that once protected tubes and other parts, he had some PCB panels made up for the top and bottom. The bottom had enough room for a compact USB keypad, with room left over on the panel for a cooling fan and various connectors. A 7″ HDMI display was added to the panel on the top lid, while a Raspberry Pi 5 with a 500-GB NVMe SSD went below the lower panel. The insides are properly decorated with cyberpunk-esque regalia including a “Self Destruct” button. Sadly, this appears to be unimplemented in the current version, at least for the stated purpose; there’s always hope for version two.

While we love the look and feel of this build and the subtle nods to the cyberpunk aesthetic, it sure seems like you could get some serious work done with a deck like this. Hats off to [Hans] for the build, and here’s hoping he left some of those cool cases for the rest of us.

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Retro Inspired Cyberdeck Scrolls Around Cyberspace

July 25, 2024 by Tom Nardi 24 Comments

It’s difficult to nail down exactly what counts as a “real” cyberdeck in this brave new era of bespoke computing. But at the minimum, most in the community would agree that a proper deck should have a non-traditional form factor, and be designed to meet the unique needs of the builder. If you’re looking for a fantastic example of both concepts, check out the Cyberdore 2064 from [Tommi L].

At first glance the 3D printed enclosure of the Cyberdore looks a bit like a Speak & Spell, but it’s really more of an amalgamation of everything that made 1980s computers so unique. You’ve got the vents, the chunky switches, the undersized display, and of course, the handle. The case might have been extruded in 2024, but it’s doing a fantastic impression of a piece of tech from 40 years ago.

One of the key external features of the Cyberdore 2064 is the side-mounted rotary encoder that allows for smoothly scrolling through online feeds (such as your favorite hardware hacking site) or long documents. The cheap and easy to work with KY-040 encoder has been converted to a USB input device by way of a Pi Pico, and has been paired with an over-sized 3D printed knob that really makes this build stand out — not only visually, but in terms of usability. These cyberdeck builds often rely on touch screens for input, but we always appreciate a physical interface.

Under the hood you’ve got a Raspberry Pi Zero and an 18650 cell to keep the whole thing running while on the go. Though the Zero is certainly showing its age compared to the more modern variants of the Pi, for a device like this, raw computing power isn’t really the driving concern. A mechanical keyboard usually rounds out these cyberdeck builds, but in this case, [Tommi] went with a fairly common Rii 518BT portable board that’s been skillfully integrated into the front of the Cyberdore.

All of the STL files necessary to print out your own Cyberdore 2064 are available on Printables, and while [Tommi] didn’t exactly provide build instructions, the write-up provides plenty of information to get you started.

So is it just us, or does looking at Cyberdore 2064 make you think it’s time for another Hackaday Cyberdeck Challenge?