Cyberdecks!

Ok yea it's a dumb name and I hate it, but if you search that on the face tube, you get some nifty little machines:







I have absolutely zero use for one of these, but I want one.

I think I'd want one with good gamepad stuff, maybe something riscV inside, I dunno!

I've seen at least one that does the arm strap thing.

This is the kind of board I'd like, but dammit I need the vector extensions. I am not sure what is going on with that. Maybe the instruction set isn't quite nailed down yet.



Or maybe these cores have the instructions but lscpu isn't showing them.

I guess the real challenge of these is getting the right tiny keyboard. A girlfriend built one of those little osu trackpad things a few years back and I watched her do it but I donut remember any of it.

I've never met a craptop keyboard I liked.

It is fascinating to watch. They click on those little circles so fast, especially if Korean (and she is).

My brain doesn't run at that kind of frame rate.

Wow that's like full body workout osu!

This is an internet friend so I'm not super sure where she is now (I probably should have put a space between those two words).

Looking at Keyboards Community - PCBWay

I started small with a pair of pi picos and a cheap ass breadboard that came with a bunch of resisters and capacitors and whatsits. Lots of little wires and stuff.

I tried soldering on header pins and totally botched it. I'm blind and my hands shake so it didn't go well.

Then I learned that breadboards are very inconsistent (at least mine is) on the amount of force needed to stick a metal thing in the holes. There's a funny joke in there somewhere. But yea I totally destroyed the headers I soldered on trying to get it to plug in.

When I eventually just took one of the metal ended wires and tried the holes they were all super resistant. So I know now to pre-stab the holes really good before plugging stuff in.

The pico devkit works, and I got the sample going that blinks the LED. This is the only success I had in hours. Anything related to pins didn't seem to do anything. And each time you re-run, you have to unplug the USB and replug while holding a button down on the board. My USB is really hard to reach and I destroyed my back reaching for it 69 times.

I took the unheadered pico and tried just setting it atop the breadboard and using wires to the pins involved. I had a little 5 dollar i2c oled display plugged in, and even found a youtube tutorial with the exact screen. Nothing, dead as a doornail.

I think my next step is to find a good way to debug, and to work on things without the unplug / replug step. I've got a circuit tester but I have zero idea how to use it. The instructions are in english but they may as well be Adunaic because I have no idea what any of those words mean.

Flux, like limestone? I played dwarf fortress!

That's probably the second time I ever tried it. I have a thing that heats up and little silvery wires.

I should probably watch a howto video or something. I know how to weld, and I think we did braizing? Or something like that? In shop class about 30 years ago.