Cyberdeck Gets a Steampunk Makeover
While some may see it as blasphemy or simple pop culture confusion, Alleycat’s steampunk-styled cyberdeck is still very cool.
Due to their origins in William Gibson’s Sprawl universe, cyberdecks almost always exhibit a cyberpunk aesthetic. As we all know, cyberpunk’s biggest competitor in the cosplay community (of which cyberdecks are something of an extension) is steampunk. So while some may see it as blasphemy or simple pop culture confusion, Alleycat’s steampunk-styled cyberdeck does make some sense.
For a solid decade, steampunk was the maker aesthetic of choice. It has been largely supplanted by cyberpunk aesthetics, but steampunk will always have a place in our hearts. Alleycat’s device combines much of the functionality and hardware convention from the cyberdeck movement with steampunk style. In this case, that style comes through in the form of brass panels and stained wood accents. There is even a leather handle to complete the look.
On the hardware side, this device contains a single-board computer (SBC) as expected. But instead of the typical Raspberry Pi, it utilizes a LattePanda 2 Alpha 800s SBC. That LattePanda stands out because it can run standard Windows operating systems, as opposed to Linux distros like most other SBCs. Alleycat has it running Windows 10, though it can handle other versions of Windows.
The other standout feature is the large E Ink screen. That is a 10.3” model with a resolution of 1872x1404 and a blazing 15Hz refresh rate. 15 refreshes a second is slow for LCD and OLED screens, but it is very fast for an E Ink screen. That screen and its HDMI interface allow for different display modes, including dither, black and white, and grayscale. The refresh rate is even fast enough for gaming in DOSBox.
Alleycat chose not to incorporate a keyboard, as they use this cyberdeck for coding and prefer to take advantage of their Ergodox mechanical keyboard. Power comes from a hefty 30,000mAh USB power bank from Baseus. That power bank has a nice-looking charge display, which is visible through a window in one of the cyberdeck’s brass panels. For storage, Alleycat added a 256GB M.2 SSD. They then wrote a custom Python script that displays a photo of a cat on the E Ink screen at shut down to polish things off.