A year or so ago, I became very taken with the idea of the cyberdeck. I'd seen a few examples online, and I knew I wanted one. Not because I needed one -- I just thought it would be a cool thing to have.
The problem was, all the examples I could find seemed to involve either 3D printing or some fairly advanced crafting and making skills. I don't want to go down the 3D printing rabbithole, and I'm cack-handed with tools. A cyberdeck of my own seemed out of reach.
But what about something smaller? If I can't make a cyberdeck, could I have a "decklet"? That seemed a bit more doable.
I'd already got a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W. I put it in a small case and velcroed it to the back of a 10" screen. PiOS Lite gives me all I need to run vim and mutt. Add a portable keyboard and a power pack and Bob's my mother's brother. Not exactly a cyberdeck, but definitely cyberdeck-adjacent. I call it DeckZero-Alpha.
And it works pretty well for what I need. Setting up is a bit faffy, but it's pretty lightweight and portable. I have a little bash script that gets the latest version of my calendar, todo and notes from the Pi at home and edits are pushed back the same way. All the files are plain text so I don't fret about bandwidth.
I have the same environment on my laptop, so moving between the two doesn't need me thinking in a different way. Yes, I could d the same thing (and probably more efficiently) in Google Workspace on my phone and laptop. But I'm not completely comfortable having my whole life in the grip of a big tech giant. DeckZero-Alpha gives me the beginnings of a route out.
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richard <AT> deckzero <DOT> uk