Cyberdeck v1

During lockdown last winter, in between figuring out 12v boat electrics and learning to keep the stove going overnight, I managed to play more with my Raspberry Pi 4. My goal is to build a small hybrid as-open-as-possible computer/tablet, in which I controll the hardware and the OS.

In the process I got completely lost in r/unixporn, r/cyberdeck and watching HexDSL and DistroTube videos. The Ideal Cyberdeck in my head got re-shaped a dozen times, but instead of waiting for when I’m finally happy with it (could be never), I’ve decided to just share some progress.

The first version used a Pimoroni Hyperpixel screen over the RPi 4, Audacious player with a Winamp skin and a sweet Ready Player One fanart wallpaper.

The desktop is Raspberry Pi OS LXDE (default), but I’ve also tried XFCE, Twister OS (probably best choice if you just want to use Raspberry Pi as an awesome tiny computer with everything pre-installed) and i3 tiling window manager (while also reading and watching all about BSPWM, DWM, Sway and AwesomeWM, lol).

To compliment my setup, I found a retro Panasonic RQ-2102 casette player on Ebay (the one that has been commonly used as a dataset for Apple II), and paired it with a cheap “Phone audio 2 casette” adapter. This way I can play some sweet mono music and podcasts via Raspberry’s 3.5mm jack. Finally I’ve soldered a USB plug (5v to 9v step-up) to the battery springs of the recorder, so it can be powered from a powerbank or USB socket.