Build a Cyberdeck

<style> @import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=VT323&family=Space+Mono:wght@400;700&display=swap'); .reveal { font-family: 'Space Mono', monospace; } .reveal h1, .reveal h2, .reveal h3 { font-family: 'VT323', monospace; text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 0.1em; text-shadow: 0 0 20px rgba(0, 255, 136, 0.5), 0 0 40px rgba(0, 255, 136, 0.2); color: #00ff88; } .reveal p, .reveal li { font-size: 0.7em; line-height: 1.6; color: #e0d0ff; } .reveal blockquote { border-left: 4px solid #ff6b9d; background: rgba(255, 107, 157, 0.1); font-style: italic; color: #ffb3d0; padding: 10px 20px; font-size: 0.65em; } .reveal .slide-background { background-color: #0a0a0f; } .reveal section { text-align: left; } .reveal img { border: 2px solid rgba(0, 255, 136, 0.3) !important; border-radius: 4px; box-shadow: 0 0 30px rgba(0, 255, 136, 0.15); } .vhs-text { color: #ff6b9d; font-family: 'VT323', monospace; font-size: 0.5em; opacity: 0.7; } .scanline { color: rgba(0, 255, 136, 0.4); font-family: 'VT323', monospace; font-size: 0.4em; } </style>  # BUILD A CYBERDECK ### PLEASE ADJUST TRACKING Welcome, small inventor. Tonight we assemble a portable computer from scraps, sunlight, and the humming dream behind the school gym. <span class="vhs-text">REC ● 1993B    MULTIVERSE SCHOOL    TAPE 01 OF 01</span> ---  ## WHAT IS A CYBERDECK? A cyberdeck is a computer that remembered it has a body. It has handles, scars, stickers, maybe a screen found blinking in a closet in 1993B. > Not a laptop. Not a tablet. Not a product. A cyberdeck is a computer that belongs to you because you built it — and it could never belong to anyone else, because nobody else would have built it this way. <span class="scanline">▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒</span> ---  ## MATERIALS: THE SACRED JUNK PILE Orange Pi. Old phones. Pelican cases. Keyboard bones. If it was abandoned by the marketplace, it may yet become a friend. > Your cyberdeck can cost $0 or $1000. The only wrong budget is the one that stops you from building. <span class="vhs-text">▶ SCAVENGING GUIDE: docs.themultiverse.school/BvvEwvSUTyeMpfJw6ssqYA</span> ---  ## PICK YOUR TIER | Tier | Cost | The Vibe | |------|------|----------| | **Drawer Phone** | $0 | postmarketOS on a phone you forgot you had | | **eBay Special** | $30-50 | Orange Pi Zero + cracked screen + prayers | | **Starter Deck** | $75-120 | Real screen, real keyboard, all-day battery | | **Daily Driver** | $150-300 | GameCube emulation, touchscreen, style | | **War Machine** | $500+ | Local AI, mesh networking, solar | ---  ## SCAVENGING: WHERE TO FIND THE BONES Every dead phone is a Linux computer in a glass coffin. - **Thrift stores** — old phones, $2-5 each - **E-waste bins** — screens, batteries, cables - **Friends' drawers** — "do you still use this?" - **Your own house** — that phone from 2018 is waiting > The best component is the one you already own. The second-best is the one someone else was going to throw away. ---  ## POSTMARKETOS: YOUR PHONE WAS LYING Some phones are secretly tiny Linux creatures in glass coffins. Wake them with **postmarketOS** and they will whisper: *"I was never just an app rectangle."* - Alpine Linux — real package manager, real services - 250+ supported devices - SSH into your phone like any other server <span class="vhs-text">▶ postmarketos.org  |  wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices</span> ---  ## YOUR PHONE IS NOW A WEB SERVER ``` $ doas apk add nginx python3 nodejs $ doas rc-service nginx start $ # that's it. your phone serves web pages now. ``` Your phone already has a battery, screen, and WiFi. It was always a computer. The app store just didn't want you to know. ---  ## CHOOSE YOUR SBC: ORANGE PI OR ORANGE PORTAL Pick a board like you pick a familiar: ports, power draw, heat, vibes. <span class="scanline">▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒</span> ---  ## ORANGE PI ZERO 2W — $24 **4GB RAM** · Allwinner H618 · WiFi built-in · 65x30mm The tiniest possible deck. Fits inside an Altoids tin. Runs Linux CLI, emulates through PS1. Barely usable but it boots and it's *yours*. ---  ## ORANGE PI ZERO 3 — $50-80 **4GB RAM** · Allwinner H618 · WiFi 5 + BT · Gigabit Ethernet The budget all-rounder. Browses the web, emulates through N64, runs a web server. All-day battery on a power bank. The one most people should start with. ---  ## ORANGE PI 5B — $130-227 **8GB RAM** · RK3588S · WiFi 6 + BT 5.0 · 64GB onboard storage GameCube and Wii emulation. Real desktop with KDE Plasma. PSP at 4x resolution. This is where it stops feeling like a project and starts feeling like a computer. ---  ## ORANGE PI 5 PLUS — $170-354 **16-32GB RAM** · RK3588 · NVMe · 6 TOPS NPU Local AI models. Dual displays. HDMI capture. > This is a workstation that fits in a lunchbox. ---  ## WHAT THE 5 PLUS CAN DO - Run Qwen 7B at 5-7 tok/s — local AI, no subscription - Dual 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet — serious networking - HDMI input — capture video from another device - NVMe SSD — 20x faster than an SD card ---  ## ORANGE PI 6 PLUS — $250-270 **32GB RAM** · CIX CD8180 · **45 TOPS NPU** · Next-gen The new hotness. NPU performance rivals laptop-class AI chips. Runs 7-13B parameter models comfortably. If you're building a cyberdeck that thinks, this is the brain. > The best computer is the one you understand well enough to repair at midnight. ---  ## ASSEMBLY: PUT THE GHOST IN THE LUNCHBOX Mount the screen. Route the wires. Be gentle with the plastic teeth. Every screw is a tiny treaty between chaos and usefulness. > Every electronic component runs on magic smoke. The magic smoke was put in at the factory. If you let the magic smoke out, the component stops working. Your only job during assembly is to keep the magic smoke inside the board. ---  ## THE QUESTIONS THAT MATTER 1. Where is the screen going? 2. Where is the battery going? 3. Where is the brain going? 4. How do you keep the magic smoke in? 5. How do you make it **yours**? ---  ## CHOOSE YOUR ENCLOSURE Pelican case. Lunchbox. Typewriter shell. Altoids tin. Briefcase from Goodwill. There are no wrong answers except "I bought a laptop." > The Little Talking Scholar cyberdeck: a recycled 1989 children's toy laptop running Linux, with physical punch cards to switch apps and Morse code for text input. The Altoids tin cyberdeck: a Raspberry Pi Zero inside a breath mint tin with a hand-soldered keyboard and a 2-inch display. ---  ## BOOT IT UP: THE FIRST GREEN WORDS Press power and wait in the blue hallway between worlds. If text appears, rejoice. If smoke appears, unplug and speak kindly to the machine. **Flash your OS:** - **Armbian** — best for Orange Pi (community builds, always current) - **DietPi** — lightest possible Linux (32 MiB idle!) - **postmarketOS** — best for old phones (real Linux, not Android) - **Batocera** — boots straight into retro gaming <span class="vhs-text">TIP: avoid Orange Pi vendor images — they're stale kernel 5.10 forks</span> ---  ## INSTALL COOL STUFF: SOFTWARE FOR THE STRANGE AND FREE Terminal tools, offline maps, ham radio apps, synths, games, field notes. Your deck should do useful work and also make one inexplicable sound. - **llama.cpp** — run AI models locally, no subscription - **RetroArch** — every retro game system in one app - **Kiwix** — offline Wikipedia (yes, really) ---  ## MORE COOL STUFF - **Piper TTS** — your cyberdeck talks to you - **faster-whisper** — your cyberdeck listens to you - **Cloudflare Tunnel** — put your deck on the internet, from anywhere - **Syncthing** — peer-to-peer file sync, no cloud - **Meshtastic** — off-grid text messaging via LoRa radio <span class="vhs-text">▶ openalternative.co — find open source alternatives to everything</span> ---  ## MESH NETWORKING: COMPUTERS HOLDING HANDS IN THE DARK No towers? No landlords of the signal? Fine. Our decks can gossip through the air like raccoons with walkie-talkies. **Meshtastic** — $29 LoRa radio nodes - Off-grid text messaging, GPS tracking - No cell service needed - Range: 1-10+ miles depending on terrain > Pair a Heltec V3 with your cyberdeck. Now you have a communication device that works when the internet doesn't. That's not paranoia — that's engineering. ---  ## SOLAR POWER: FEED IT THE SKY Panel to controller, controller to battery, battery to the hungry little brick. The sun is an old server. It has excellent uptime. - Orange Pi Zero 3: ~5W — a 20W panel keeps it alive forever - postmarketOS phone: built-in battery, just add a solar cable > A cyberdeck that runs on sunlight is a computer that doesn't need permission to exist. No outlet, no grid, no bill. Just light. ---  ## THE COMMUNITY: NOBODY OWNS THE MAGIC We share schematics. We fix each other's mistakes. We label the cursed cables. A cyberdeck is portable, but the dream is communal. **Where to find your people:** - **r/cyberDeck** — builds, inspo, troubleshooting - **Hackaday** — project writeups - **This class** — you, right now, in this room > When you build a cyberdeck, you join a tradition of people who decided that computers should be weird, personal, repairable, and free. Welcome. ---  ## GO BUILD: THE TAPE ENDS BUT THE MACHINE CONTINUES Take the parts. Take the notes. Take the goblin confidence. Somewhere, a future computer is waiting in a drawer, pretending to be trash. **Your next steps:** 1. Flash postmarketOS on an old phone (free, today) 2. Pick your SBC tier and order parts 3. Find your enclosure (thrift store, recycling bin, kitchen) 4. Join the community 5. Build the thing only you would build <span class="vhs-text">▶ FULL SYLLABUS: docs.themultiverse.school/pJ6egq76SpKjzQmfSezFow</span> ---  # STOP PAYING PETER THIEL ANY MONEY Steal this whole curriculum and turn it into zines and friendship Teach everyone they're free and always have been Make more cyberdecks with your friends who are living in the past <span class="vhs-text">■ STOP    REWIND ◀◀    1993B EDUCATIONAL COMPUTING SERIES    DO NOT DUPLICATE</span>

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