What keeps going through my mind regarding this topic is that we have Instagram for pictures, YouTube for videos, Reddit as a forum, Twitter/Bsky as a microblogging service, and so on. But what if we focused on locality again? What if each city/region had its own virtual meeting place for pictures, videos, forums, microblogging, and so forth? I don't mean a "super app" that simply divides things regionally, but rather that each regional center builds its own Hangout.<p>I realize that this sounds fantastical, and I don't know how something like that could be implemented in the current situation. It's more the idea that while Facebook and similar platforms allow us to see content from people all over the world, we completely miss out on what's happening in our own local area.
I read the article and sadly I think the author missed a key thing that is going on.<p>Yes, there are few people who created cyberdecks as a counter-culture, anti-company tool (which is a lot of what the author argues).<p>But some of the newer ones they highlight are nothing more than engagement farming reels. They are the very definition of the opposite of what the author writes here:<p>> We want to escape the algorithmic plantations that tech companies have herded us into.<p>I don't know of they fail to see this because they are blinded by their hope or there is a more complex viewpoint I'm missing.
Are you sure this isn’t just because it’s the “wrong” people who are building them? Instead of the typical (older) FOSS/geek/whatever crowd?<p>It feels overly negative to me. People, mostly younger people, are building them, tinkering with them and are excited to post about them. Is it any surprise they’re doing so on TikTok or wherever? Yes, it’s a little ironic considering the anti-big-tech vibes mentioned in the article, but is it any different from when our lot were posting to Google+ etc?<p>I don’t know, this feels like a good thing to me, and something we should encourage. The more people playing and experimenting with tech rather than passively consuming the better.<p>If I was a teenager again today I like to think I’d be hacking one of these together.
Nah, it's not "the wrong people" but "the wrong purpose" with the purpose being no purpose or rather just "looking good on social media".<p>Which, don't get me wrong, is generally fine, because not everything has to be functional, art is important, bla bla bla.
Problem however is when the algorithm gets involved and "being not part of the mainstream" becomes a mainstream metric to optimize for.<p>This feels like that, and - as it often has happened - it weaponizes the usual stuff to defend itself.
Which we do not want, because the stuff it weaponizes is actually important, so it should not be tainted by the big value extraction machine in the cloud.
Hmm perhaps you are right.<p>I think I'd over indexed on the unfinished look of some of them, but relooking at them as prototypes instead of the level of the original set makes them seem more reasonable.
Most of the cyberdecks you see, though, are just cosmetic variations on "raspi in a pelican case". Some of those cosmetic variations are definitely impressive, but the guts are mostly the same between builds. The guy who 3D-printed a bespoke case to make it look like it was off the set of The Martian did an amazing job, but it's still just a raspberry pi, a display, and a USB mechanical keyboard, less interesting from a technical perspective than the one that's more or less the same, but using a beer can speaker and an 18V drill battery as a power supply, but again still just a raspi.<p>While there are definitely a few notable builds that involved actually-interesting technical problem solving, I think most cyberdecks make more sense through the lens of physical concept art exploring what a rugged or perhaps ultra-personalized personal computer can be.
Agree. Any hobby can become superficial content for Instagram, especially if your only or main source of information is online channels. But real communities exist, and you need to be in the real world to experience them firsthand.
<i>I don't know of they fail to see this because they are blinded by their hope or there is a more complex viewpoint I'm missing.</i><p>There is. "We want to escape" is a very different viewpoint from "we want to liberate the masses."<p>Freeing yourself from the social media is definitely doable. Depending on how firmly engaged you are at the moment, it can vary in difficulty between <i>fait accompli</i> and moderately challenging. It's obviously possible for anyone to do themselves.<p>Liberating the masses? Morpheus said it best:<p><i>"The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it."</i>
> "We want to escape" is a very different viewpoint from "we want to liberate the masses."<p>I don't think this is a point the author spoke about at all.<p>To crudely summarize what I think their claim is: <i>Cyberdecks are an anti-big tech creation. They are spreading outside traditional hackers and the proof is these reels</i>.<p>My claim is that cyberdecks are not spreading, and instead those reels is just evidence that (a) people will mine all subcultures for topics that they can create views from and (b) the author themselves is enabling this behavior.
They are spreading but the tech bro forums, as always, hate it. Make your case creative and not another grey 3d printed case? You'll either get ignored or condescended to.<p>Post your creation on a social channel not dominated by white bros?<p>You are fake, a culture miner and engagement farming.<p>See the post above for a textbook way of rejecting anyone who isn't a white tech bro.
<i>I</i> wrote the above post. I <i>like</i> the creative cases!<p>But <i>maybe</i> you are right and it isn't just engagement mining. I think my problem is more that I'm comparing the level of finish on the original cyberdecks to these ones, and they don't compare well.<p>But perhaps I should be thinking of these as prototype level ones.<p>(It's also very valid to point out the original ones were so well finished because they were engagement mining too)
If I listen to X band. Watch Y film. Am I doing it purely for myself or have I been prodded by society in some way?<p>Am I a 'real' fan of band X, or not, because I only got into them with there latest hit album?<p>This isn't a new thing. Niche thing becomes popular. Fans of niche thing try to gate keep.<p>My biggest critique would be that the author doesn't realise the 'algorithmic plantation' they are in. The only cyberdecks I've seen are made by white men. Not trans and black people.<p>Further I don't even think it's about cyberdecks per se. That's the in thing. Before that it was neo pixels or whatever. People like to make things, and people are influenced by others. The cyberdecks isn't the counter cultural element. It's the making of whatever that is. Cyberdecks are just the latest thing.
My opinion is somewhat that the last "real" cyberdeck was the Hackberry Pi, which is essentially the Blackberry I always wanted and that they never produced. Due to it being fully open, there's an insane amount of 3d printing community overlap, where people share their upgrades, designs, modifications and customizations.<p>Raspberry Pi as a platform has revolutionized access to computers in my opinion, though since the RAM crisis started not so much anymore due to the insane price differences. But the Hackberry is the computing device where I think it has lots of potential for being my actual "Linux on the go" that I wanted but never got ... for the last 15(?) years waiting for it.<p>[1] <a href="https://github.com/ZitaoTech/HackberryPiCM5" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/ZitaoTech/HackberryPiCM5</a>
Depends what you define as a cyberdeck. If you look low power/ non-linux there are many innovative decks:
<a href="https://hackaday.com/2023/03/06/low-power-challenge-the-potatop-runs-lisp-for-months-without-recharging/" rel="nofollow">https://hackaday.com/2023/03/06/low-power-challenge-the-pota...</a><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK0uAKkt0AE" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK0uAKkt0AE</a> colorforth deck<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn0MxHlima0" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn0MxHlima0</a> discrete deck built like the tandy 1000<p>If Cyberdeck builds get people building, then it's all good. Farming does encourage others to build so it's all heading in the right direction :)
I recently got a (good!) 3D printer, and that combined with Claude has got me building lots of custom hardware devices using ESP32s.<p>I don't really see the value in a full-computer experience (which seems to be what most cyberdecks try to do - badly) but I can see utility in "sidecar"-style hardware, which is more akin to a phone app but with a better experience because of custom hardware.
Analog Electronics are the goat, there this whole branch of people who make electronic music using pure analog circuits, here is an example : <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOr4ShNCFBv/?igsh=MTR2MWx6aHhzZWc0cw%3D%3D" rel="nofollow">https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOr4ShNCFBv/?igsh=MTR2MWx6aHh...</a>
Cyberdecks are nice for photos and build blog posts, but does anyone actually regularly use them?
For general compute they will lose to a laptop, but that isn't supposed to be their purpose. I think the best use cases require extra hardware that would make a laptop too bulky or awkward. For example a deck with a VNA, SDR, scope, and arbitrary waveform generator for field work with radio equipment. The traditional computer capabilities are sort of extra. Any sort of diagnostic "cart" with a dedicated computer and a bunch of test equipment could be a candidate for miniaturization.
> "<i>For example a deck with a VNA, SDR, scope, and arbitrary waveform generator for field work with radio equipment.</i>"<p>Any real world examples? I don't think that's plausible from a RFI, power, heat, or just plain fragility perspective even with the cheapo hobbyist instruments suitable for kitbashing and only energizing a couple of instruments a time.
I'm imagining a computer set up for DJing with big-ass speakers on the outside top lid, and a bunch of analog controls on either side of the keyboard, and a heavy battery.
That's not only possible, but was done to death in the early 2000s during the heyday of car audio components, "home theater" PCs, iPods, and finally good enough laptops.<p>If you built one of those you were automatically the DJ after school, at the skate park, etc. You better believe those SLA batteries were heavy.
Been working on a handheld cyberdeck with a good thumb keyboard. I'm masochistic enough to write entire projects on my smartphone with vim running inside termux, so I think anything that improves on this will certainly be used.<p>Measured my thumb's swiping arc and designed a split keyboard specifically for my hands. Managed to get every symbol in there with no layers. Now I just need to save up some money and order protypes so I can get a feel for the switches. Can't move forward until I've perfected the keyboard.
Idk if it merits being called a cyberdeck, but i use my rickety suitcase tablet+keyboard+mouse (+ powerbank) setup which I VNC from to my house computers mainly. One of the reasons is local LLMs being often impractical to run directly in my laptop, especially as I also do other things. Before that I didn't use it as much. Sometimes I just put the laptop and the mouse in the suitcase, mainly because I find the trackpad virtually unusable for VNC, particularly for copy-paste.
They're interactive art projects!
I got a ClockworkPi uConsole and am not really using it much, and that’s because it’s become very hard for me to read on the high dpi small screen for too long.
The ideal "cyberdeck" form factor is just a regular laptop. So to the extent that a macbook pro counts as a cyberdeck, yes.
More of a fun Maker project for sure
The two non computer device I use today are my digital audio player (DAP) and my ereader. If I have the time and money, that would be the kind of specialized tasks that I could design a cyberdeck towards. The laptop form factor is quite nice for computing although I would like more direct ports than USB which is complex for experimentation.
no, they're plastic crap for kickstarter photos. not designed for human hands.<p>They once existed (see Sony Vaio P 2nd gen; coolest thing in the universe) but modern OEMs no longer have such taste.
GPD makes several devices that come close to the old compact Vaios. I have the GPD Win Mini and it's a pretty capable machine - 32GB RAM, 2TB storage, RDNA 3.5 gfx, built-in gamepad, full set of ports.<p>The keyboard is surprisingly usable, although of course nowhere close to that of a laptop, but still usable for short periods. I got a fully fleshed out Arch gaming setup (manual install) and I use it on a regular basis like a Steam Deck and just a portable dev/test machine at work.
I always wanted one of the tiny form factor laptops but during that period I had a specific need for a real non-usb hardware serial port and instead bought a laptop that actually had one which was very strange (2009 maybe?)
I think these things are interesting, but I grew up on neuromancer...and so I have some cognitive dissonance when I see these described as cyberdecks and see screens.<p>I get that the term has moved on, and cyberdeck means whatever people say it means now. But to me, these are just novel retro diy laptops. I think given today's technology you could sort of a approximate a cyberdeck with some low end ar/vr glasses like something from xreal and ditch the screen.
At CCCamp 2023 was someone showing off how they converted a laptop with a broken screen into a cyberdeck by removing the screen and permanently connecting the bottom half to VR glasses.<p>There was also a musical Tesla coil. And some group called Anderstorp, who converted a massive obsolete router into a beer tap.
"Yeah I don't get it..." meanwhile me packing for holiday with my GrapheneOS Pixel with my 3D printed phone stand and my BT mechanical keyboard "Wait a minute!"<p>Also gave a workshop last weekends to kids and brought a "server" as a RPi Zero and a cheap (as in goodie level) tiny battery.<p>Damned, I'm part of the "movement".
Forget the Ono-Sendai Cyberspace Seven, I'm still waiting for a Sandbenders.
I'll just wait until I can jack in with a jailbroken Neuralink.
i've seen many people get into cyberdecks. stuff like this gets people feet wet for stem professions like engineering and programming.
> Technology was supposed to connect us[...]<p>Was it? According to whom? The quoted phrase is pretty much a meme at this point, but I don't think it's true. This would suggest people in the 80s and 90s were sitting around feeling lonely and isolated, wishing they could be "more connected".<p>Technology has always been about one thing: giving people more freedom. Whether it's the ability to make coffee at home, or travel vast distances at great speeds whenever you want to, it's all about people being free from the constraints of relying on society (and the environment) for things.<p>It's all fundamentally counter to a cohesive society. It was never going to make us "more connected", quite the contrary. Asimov saw where this was going half a century ago. In his books the Solarians took technology to the extreme, allowing them to live alone on enormous estates affording them all the freedom in the world. But they were alone, communicating only remotely through screens. They didn't even have sex any more. Sound familiar?<p>When I read this as a teen it totally put me off "freedom" as the singular goal so many people treat it as. I didn't want to end up like that. I don't want to be alone. Life is about sharing and technology is never going to help with that, it's only going to make it worse, if we let it.<p>> This is apparent in the rise of "journal tok", where people on TikTok are posting about returning to written journals, planners, and sketchbooks.<p>Is this intended to be ironic? People will do anything for views on TikTok, including making videos about not using TikTok. If anyone does anything and puts it on TikTok, or other social media, I assume they're doing it for the views, not because they actually enjoy it. If you want to find someone who enjoys cooking, find someone who will cook and eat with you, don't look on TikTok. If you want to find someone who doesn't like TikTok, well, guess where you won't find them.<p>The rest of the article is filled with TikTok videos which I'm not going to watch.
> This would suggest people in the 80s and 90s were sitting around feeling lonely and isolated, wishing they could be "more connected".<p>It's anecdotal, but: Around that time, I found that it was very difficult to meet people who weren't assholes. It's easy to feel emotions like loneliness and isolation when it seems like everyone you work to be friends with turns into a caustic piece of shit.<p>That changed significantly when I began to get involved with BBSs and started communicating with a much more diverse set of people -- without faces or prejudice, just words on a screen.<p>I don't know what caused them to stick around. But do know that I still have a number of very good friends from Way Back Then who I probably would never have known at all if we didn't share some mutual interest in using communications technology ~35 years ago.
I became an engineer because I'm lazy.
> Cyberdecks are changing for the better<p>> I say that cyberdecks are having another wave of resurgence because the interest in cyberdecks waxes and wanes, like everything in life, there is a cycle to the ideas coming into focus and out of focus, washing into the shore and washing back out to the sea of etheral thought.<p>> In my own view, cyberdecks have remained popular because of hacker culture. And all of the cultural norms wrapped up in hacker subcultures carries along with it. Specifically, the design of cyberdecks over the years has maintained a steady state of projects that maintain a military or scientific bend to them. They are afterall, influenced by science fiction about dystopian future societies that focus on war, dystopian corporate megacities, or interstellar travel.<p>AI or just <i>terrible</i> writing?