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Show HN: I built my first Cyberdeck
- antigravity42 3y agoi want not this but a device between scientific calculator and smartphone with 720/480 display one framework like expendable port, qwerty keyboard may be some functions of flipper zero
- back7co 3y agoI would encourage you to either take a look at the cyberdeck.cafe website or drop into the Discord server- you may be surprised how many different builds there are, and you probably would find the original designer pretty happy to share design files or suggestions.
- AHOHA 3y agoLooks great, for the SBC, a nvidia jetson based might also be a great option, something like jetson nano/NX as they have the same power delivery.
- Gisbitus 3y agoDidn't know they existed, they look great! I'll consider them for the next one, which is probably gonna be beefier.
- AHOHA 3y agoThey are great as they have cuda cores etc., the only downside is you have to use their ubuntu image to utilize all the features as the drivers are proprietary, you can install other distributions but you will lose that functionality. If you are looking for an -almost- as powerful SBC (with m.2 support as I see you have it in the original design), give a look at Rock5-B (1), I didn’t test it personally unlike nVidia ones, but it seems it has a great specs, as you might also struggle to secure jetson ones sometimes due to stocks being sold out. (1) https://ameridroid.com/collections/rock5-model-b/products/rock5-model-b https://ameridroid.com/collections/rock5-model-b/products/ro...
- azzentys 3y agoThere's a yocto layer for Jetson - which gives you highly customizable OS. Yocto does have steep learning curve, so that's a showstopper.
- AHOHA 3y agoI remember I tried Yocto, indeed it’s customizable, but when I tested it, its performance wasn’t on par with the stock one, specifically with gstreamer and vp9 encoding/decoding. Maybe it’s changed now though, worth the try OP.
- mech422 3y agoHeh - I can't resist throwing a mention in for my favorite here too (1). Available, cheap, x86 based... I love them :-) I have 3-4 of the H2 models, and they have only gotten better ! 1. https://ameridroid.com/products/odroid-h3 https://ameridroid.com/products/odroid-h3
- pengaru 3y agoPlease run your graphics through a web-friendly compression format before sticking them inline auto-loaded @ the provided url. Those image file sizes are bonkers for what I'm trying to look at.
- KomoD 3y agoLol, well there goes 60mb of mobile data for some people...
- hammyhavoc 3y agoThe world needs more slabtops. They're my favourite form-factor of all time for writing anything creative. Feels like a typewriter.
- criddell 3y agoWhat are some others?
- hammyhavoc 3y agoThe classic TRS-80 Model 100, Cambridge Z88, QuickPad Pro, AlphaSmart Dana. There's a bunch more too. I'm somewhat of an enthusiast for this form-factor, this and typewriters are a hobby for the missus and I. Douglas Adams used a Cambridge Z88 for writing! Prior to laptop batteries becoming decent once swappable batteries became less common, serious journos frequently used to turn to the slabtop even a decade ago. There's something very human and intimate in the usage of it, despite modern clamshells obviously having better viewing angles and giving you a better posture. They feel very natural and intuitive, in the same way a pen and paper does. The older ones are also frequently very easy to read in the sunshine, and the batteries can last a long time. The AlphaSmart Neo 2 gets 700h of battery life, but is more of a word processor with extras like applets. Also huge nerds for ThinkPads, but that's another, non-slabtop story.
- criddell 3y agoAre there any slabtop’s still being made? All of those that you listed are discontinued. I do like the idea of having a very small, limited OS. I’ve often thought I’d love an updated Psion 5. With modern batteries and displays, you should be able to get months out of a set of batteries or battery charge.
- xwdv 3y agoThere was a demo of a Linux OS that simply boots to vim and that’s the only thing you could do on that machine. It would be perfect for this use case.
- marklar423 3y agoI love the look, but can someone explain to me what sort of things you would do with a computer of this form factor? Why do people keep building them? Is is just looks? Or is there something they're good at. To be clear, I'm not looking for something you can't do already (your phone does everything), but something that a cyberdeck computer would _excel_ at.
- atentaten 3y agoI too would like to know what use these things have?
- ocrow 3y agoSeems like it could work well to run a music tracker.
- lagniappe 3y agorenoise would run like a wild mustang on this thing
- back7co 3y agoThis comes up in response to this hobby frequently, and the answer is pretty simple- it does whatever you want. There are pretty much an endless variety of cyberdecks, and some are more useful that others. Even the ones that are for different aesthetics go on to inspire specific builds. I think you're asking the question in good faith, but it's a bit like looking at an Arduino, Raspberry Pi 2040, or Raspberry Pi 4B and asking, "what can these do that an Intel laptop can't do better?"
- viraptor 3y agoIt's a cheap small device that's extremely portable. When I was doing more random tech support things, I'd probably try to keep one in the backpack because it's relatively tiny. It can handle boot media, pxe, testing random hardware, connecting to networks you need, etc. It would come useful when I don't have a laptop / didn't expect to need to do work, but it turns out I'd really like my laptop right now. At that size, I'd just never take it out / leave behind. Although with the new, more powerful phones I could also carry a small USB dock instead. I've done random emergency work on N900 before.
- c22 3y agoDo your photos have to be so gigantic?
- Gisbitus 3y agoNope, just simply overlooked it. I’ll upload smaller versions, sorry!
- mk_stjames 3y agoI like the slab form factors (One of my first portable computers was a Tandy Model 100) but I cannot understand how someone uses a keyboard that ...doesn't have at least all the letters and numbers and period/backslash/colon etc... especially for programming! I mean I get by reading a bit from the hackaday post that there are combos or 'chords' and so I guess you are meant to memorize these chord claw combinations for things, and yes I see the videos of people claiming it can be fast etc etc but.... man I just don't get how someone could just unlearn the muscle memory of a normal keyboard layout. I had a partner with a Spanish layout keyboard macbook where a just a few keys are mixed around compared to ANSI and even after sitting with it many times it was still nearly un-useable for me... and that was just a few keys swapped around! I have noticed all the people building and using these reduced-key-count keyboards on youtube are all very young people. So maybe it has something to do with still having a pliable brain and not having decades of muscle memory to get past.
- bombcar 3y agoRemember how fast people got at texting on feature phones? It's like that, but faster. You just have to train at it; like a stenographer's keyboard. Anyone who types in a language that uses a lot of non-keyboard characters (think accents, etc) is already used to some of it.
- sublinear 3y agoSounds dumb, but I miss the days of being able to reply to a text without actually pulling my phone out of my pocket. Usually it was something to the effect of a predictive "one sec" or slightly risky "yup" if I thought I already knew how they'd respond. Thank you for confirming that we didn't type that slow back then. I felt like I was faster on physical keyboards.
- bojo 3y agoIt's just a thing. As a US qwerty layout user I've had to use JP while living in Japan. Got into mechanical keyboards and have used a 60% HHKB, 40% Vortex Core (chords), and now a fully programmable ZSA Moonlander of which no one but me could actually type a large set of special characters on. Then mix in the emacs, vim, kakoune obsession and, well, fluidity in key memorization is king. Have tinkered with the dvorak layout or similar but can't really commit because that is actually the one thing where the effort curve takes too long to pay off for me. I turn 44 this month FWIW.
- intrasight 3y agohttps://hackaday.com/2022/10/22/2022-cyberdeck-contest-qaz-personal-terminal https://hackaday.com/2022/10/22/2022-cyberdeck-contest-qaz-p... I do wish there were more slabtops
- Knar33 3y agoThere's a whole gang of cyberdeck builders over at the cyberdeck.cafe Discord if anyone is interested in the hobby! The original creator of this design is a regular there and we're always willing to help newcomers.
- gonzo41 3y agoAwesome build. However my first reaction was "I have RSI just looking at it"
- rcarmo 3y agoThis is pretty neat. As someone who frequently uses an iPad mini with a foldable Bluetooth keyboard (and who is typing this on the on-screen one right now), I like the idea of having a little UNIX machine on the go, and I like the idea of QAZ (I have been looking at QMK and other custom keyboard firmwares for a while). Right now I use a-Shell and iSH to have surprisingly powerful CLI sandboxes in iOS, but having a normal userland would be great. Curious about weight and (metric) dimensions, though. Thickness (or lack thereof) is one of the advantages of my current setup.
- unwind 3y agoThis was very good-looking, and a good write-up! I don't know the author's background in (practical) electronics work, but as an embedded developer and long-time hobbyist: obviously there are solutions for de-soldering things that don't involve dremeling them to atomic dust. I'm just saying.
- awiesenhofer 3y agoThis looks great! Any more details on the software and settings you used? Looks like it would be a perfect fit for my trusty old VAIO P.
- ChrisArchitect 3y agoDefine: cyberdeck
- detaro 3y agoportable computer (commonly: that is not a laptop), home-built or heavily customized. Name is a reference to the "decks" of early cyberpunk literature, which are used to access cyberspace.