This Futuristic-Looking Cyberdeck Features a Stretched LCD

The origin of the cyberdeck community is in replicating the fictional computers from William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy. But these days, the community is less concerned with that specific aesthetic and more interested in building unique computers. The only rules that tie the community together are that the builds need to be portable and completely custom. Members of the community get to show off the computers that would otherwise exist only in their imagination. Redditor Midknight8008 must have a great imagination, because they designed and built this futuristic-looking cyberdeck that features a stretched LCD.

When I say that this cyberdeck is "futuristic," I mean that it has the kind of styling that would have seemed futuristic back in the '80s and '90s. Our ideas about what future technology will look like have evolved dramatically, but that is part of the fun of a cyberdeck like this. It has a split-style ergonomic keyboard, which Midknight8008 made using a Reviung41 mechanical keyboard kit. An Elite-C MCU controls that keyboard and connects it to the rest of the system.

That system is built around a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B (4GB Model), which provides plenty of power. The screen is a stretched Waveshare 7.9" IPS LCD with capacitive touchscreen and a 1280 x 400 resolution. Power comes from a pair of 8000mAh LiPo batteries via a Geekworm X708 UPS HAT. We don't know exactly how much power this cyberdeck draws, but we can assume that those batteries have enough capacity for at least 18 hours of runtime. A Sandisk Extreme Pro USB SDD provides more storage capacity than the usual SD card. A sleek 3D-printed enclosure houses all of those electronic components.

This cyberdeck is still a prototype and Midknight8008 hasn't even given it a name yet. But even as it is, we think this is a fantastic project that manages to balance usability with an unusual form factor.