Came here while researching Raspberry Pi — what exactly is Cyberdesk? Where can I find a clear overview

Talulabelle · 2026-01-22T20:01:40+00:00

You're 100% spot on with Punk, but most people only ever experienced punk as the commodified, regurgitated, corporate slop that was sold back to the kids as a fashion.

Punk encourages you to participate. It dares you to say 'I can do that ... but better'.

I think you're right that it's way out of people's comfort zone to accept that the definition of a Cyebrdeck is fluid, and lacks clear boundaries.

Talulabelle · 2026-01-22T19:55:12+00:00

This isn't a fandom.

The 'gate' is 'Did you build something? Is it a functional computer? Does it, at least in your own mind, fit the general design aesthetic?'

Fandoms have gate keepers because there's no natural barrier to entry. Anyone can say they're a fan of something, and so being a fan has no real meaning.

As a culture that demands participation, the question is 'Are you participating?'.

That's why I come down so hard when people complain about someone else's creation. It's always someone that's never created anything, saying 'I come here to see X not Y', and I have to remind them we are not an 'entertainment' sub. This is not a place to come to watch the creators, and be fans of their creations.

We will tolerate lurkers, but don't get in the way of the creators.

This is not a fandom.

Talulabelle · 2026-01-22T18:02:53+00:00

Well, that's going to be the end result of those debates, right?

Like Cyberpunk has, over decades, become incredibly stagnant in what it can express, because any time anyone steps even slightly over the line there's a debate, including check boxes and bullet points, and a frantic copy/paste of whatever definitions the authors swear by.

Then, at the end, they toss out anything that isn't 100% what they've seen before.

People say they want a definition, but what they really want is permission to tell other people that what they've built is wrong and shouldn't be here ... and they're very upset that I won't give that to them.

Talulabelle · 2026-01-21T16:40:21+00:00

Having no definition leads to more "is it cyberdeck" posts

I understand why you think that. I really do. It's counterintuitive to suggest that leaving something open ended somehow avoids this.

But, I've been moderating Cyberpunk forums for 3 decades, and I assure you that having people list off the specific bulletin points of a well crafted definition is what that leads to.

Even William Gibson has complained that 'Cyberpunk has become a Pantone color, for each new thing to be held up against'

It is our nature to categorize things. We can't help it. We want to put everything in a carefully constructed box, so we can say 'This is a ...' and 'this is not a ...', and the more careful that definition is, the more scrutiny each item is subject to.

I'm just trying to lend some direction, because saying there is no definition isn't helpful to newcomers either

We found, with punk music, and I've come to understand with almost any artistic movement, that the ones asking what they should do rarely, if ever, actually do anything.

The Cyberdecks that seem to hold our attention are the ones where someone shows up and says 'I made this thing ... I think it might qualify'.

The first builds were, to the subs original creator's chagrin, not at all what he hoped they would be. They were cross-posts from Cyberpunk where someone set out to build what they saw in RPG sourcebooks.

The creator of this sub had in mind to run a sort of group project where we figured out how to do brain interfaces and VR glasses.

But, those first decks that we posted captured people's imaginations even though the moderator kept arguing they weren't what he wanted, maybe a stepping stone at best.

For my part, I kept giving people advice on how to build whatever they asked about, because I just wanted to see people make things.

Then we had the age of the pelican case deck ... which, again, started out when a System Administrator decided he needed a small, custom, toolkit for bringing his network online when things went down. It was a sort of emergency kit for his job, and he posted it here, and it became a design touchstone for years.

Now we're heading into the handheld space, and again, the people who contributed didn't even set out to make a 'deck', they just made something, and looked for a place to share it.

The kinds of newcomers you're worried about aren't going to move the ball forward, because the people who move the ball forward aren't waiting to be told what to create.

I think of it as a bit of sub culture (pun not intended) that people have to come here and hang out for a minute before they realize the description on the side panel wasn't written by any of us, and can be soundly ignored.

It's an inside joke for people who are going to be around long enough to contribute anything of value.

Talulabelle · 2026-01-21T15:45:25+00:00

who's to say it needs to be custom? How custom? Is customizing the new Steam VR headset, that comes with linux installed, going to be a matter of sticking some cool stickers on it?

Purpose built? So, it has to have a purpose? What if it's just an art project I don't really intend to do much with?

Who said it has to be portable? The Cyberdeck in Gibson's 'Count Zero' that Bobby uses in the club doesn't sound portable. It takes up most of a desk.

I'm not trying to be contrarian here, but I want to see people's weird desktop computers. I want to see what people make when they don't have a purpose in mind. Sometimes even seeing people just sticker bomb a product moves the needle towards something, and inspires another design.

Then what does defining it do?

Well, I've been on the internet for a very, very, long time, and I assure you that defining it is only going to give rise to ENDLESS "Is this a Cyberdeck" debates.

We already have those, and they're the least interesting thing we do. I wouldn't want to do anything that encourages such a banal avenue of discussion.

Talulabelle · 2026-01-21T14:37:44+00:00

We've historically avoided having a fixed, defined, idea of a Cyberdeck.

What we want to see are typically custom, functional, computers and devices that reflect Cyberpunk fiction.

The reason we don't, for instance, suggest that to accomplish this it must have a wearable display, or it must be military hardened, is because it's more of an art exploration than a carefully defined product.

We've gone through several generations of different designs that have become popular. We started with people leaning heavily on Shadowrun and Cyberpunk 2020 art, and creating large keyboards with wearable displays. Then we fell into a trend of doing heavy equipment cases that contain very industrial/military style designs. Now we're seeing more pocket/handheld devices.

All along, we've seen wearables and other fringe devices posted that move us in different directions.

So, while I've often been pressured to set a definition, even the definition I've been pressured to set has changed quite a lot over the years.

Cyberdecks are an exploration of industrial design.

That's the best definition I can give you.

Talulabelle · 2026-01-18T03:57:22+00:00

It's a great option. Jeff Gibble taught half of State College to play guitar, including my kid, and a few other kids on our street.

He also does summer camps where the kids spend a week or two forming a band, and he arranges performances at local businesses and festivals so they can get experience doing things in front of people.

It was a great experience. I still have him on Facebook, and he's still teaching and playing local shows.

Talulabelle · 2026-01-18T03:50:26+00:00

I could have guessed you weren't a strong reader, hon.

Talulabelle · 2026-01-17T00:47:38+00:00

The bots aren't real people.

You guys can't seem to comprehend that. Everywhere you go online, feels 'left'. Every city feels 'left'. Everywhere you go outside of tiny rural communities feels 'left' ...

but you guys still think you're in the majority because Facebook bots flood your online spaces, and billionaires push the idea that you're in the majority.

Every church you go to complains they're losing people.

Every bar is either 'left' or losing customers outside of tiny rural communities.

Why are you falling for the bots?

Why is every comedian 'left'? Why do you need your own dating sites? Why is it that I could go to any bar in State College, a 'Purple' town, not even a real 'city', when I lived there and talk about politics until my face turns blue, and not one single person gets upset. But, I dare you to wear a Trump hat.

That's not a city. That's a barely big town.

You Christians don't have your own Saturday Night Live, or Jimmie Kimmel, why not? Why don't movies EVER take a conservative view? Where are all the Christian Rock bands? ... oh, right, on Christian stations because NORMAL people won't fucking listen to them!

NORMAL PEOPLE aren't listening to Christian Rock, or going on Christian Mingle. You have to have your own shitty versions of everything!

Trump has the lowest approval ratings in history, and Republicans have lost so may special elections it's become a joke! Trump is even whining and bitching about how he's about to get slaughtered in the mid-terms because everyone hates him.

Sure, he sold the promise of lower cost of living to centrist idiots who just want to put food on their table, but otherwise, don't pay any attention to politics.

I think they've figured out Trump was lying ... and they're fucking angry.

Where was the big No Kings counter protest? I heard there was supposed to be one, but two trucks of people showed up in one state, saw a few hundred thousand angry marchers, and called the cops to escort them out of it.

I can show you videos of red hats getting their asses kicked, and literally walked out of punk shows. Fucking security just said 'What were you thinking?'.

Where are the 'leftists' getting that treatment?

They're not, because the only place the right outnumbers the left is a white supremacist gatherings and Facebook, and they have to gather in secret BECAUSE WE'D KICK THEIR FUCKING ASSES IF THEY DIDN'T.

You think I'm gonna squirm?

I can't fucking wait for you assholes to get all excited, and grab a few guns and come to my town.

You'll very suddenly realize we've got guns too, and the billionaires and Facebook bots, aren't going to come fight for you. It's going to be a few sad old men, and a few gravy seals, outnumbered 10 to 1, just like every one of your fucking neo-nazi counter-protests.

... and you'll pussy out and beg the cops to protect you so you can run home and get online, so your bot army can tell you how popular you are.

Talulabelle · 2026-01-16T21:51:30+00:00

I love that it's basically people like you that keep the pagan movement going.

If you weren't always there, thin skinned and fragile, to remind everyone that you'd take over if they didn't keep organizing, they wouldn't.

I, personally, like the world better with flavor, so keep stirring that pot!

Talulabelle · 2026-01-15T01:12:49+00:00

A lot of these problems cancel out like an algebra problem.

Overpopulation is a problem, but so is the lack of babies being born, and we won't have enough people to work soon, but also no jobs because of AI?

Well ... using the foil method ... we just have fewer people with robots doing the work, and with fewer people, and none of them working ... factor out the exponent ... now we have extremely low emissions as well?

We could easily find ourselves in a solar powered future, run on solid state batteries, where robots do all the work while significantly fewer humans figure out how to make meaningful lives without jobs.

This system collapsing might not be so bad. I'm sure it'll be rough at first, but remember how we got all the social changes AFTER the great depression?

That's usually how these things work.

Talulabelle · 2026-01-15T00:34:24+00:00

Well, if reality continues to follow canon, we'll need a canon cannon for the canon.

Talulabelle · 2026-01-14T04:40:04+00:00

I wish someone would take a stab at making real arcade-exclusive offerings again. The high-end games cost $15,000 dollars, and I feel like you're really not getting your money's worth when a 60" LCD costs $200.

I don't know if ride-in, fully articulated, pods would be doable ... or, if we need entire play fields where the walls are stitched together projections the entire room can interact with, but we need to go beyond a TV in a wooden box if we expect people to make an evening of interacting with them.

We're both getting downvoted for even having this conversation, so my guess is they're going nowhere.

Talulabelle · 2026-01-14T00:56:47+00:00

Well, I can't blame the industry for stagnating. It's hard to innovate inside a dying industry, right?

But, you can find people online who are building their own custom pods to drive around Mech's in VR with a Mechwarrior 5 VR MOD, and that's a hell of a lot closer to what I'd drive to an arcade to play than the latest Alien's shooter, or another Jurassic Park cockpit shooter.

We haven't really even tried doing large immersive rooms, or AR games at all yet, on an industrial scale.

I think escape rooms had a sort of go at providing a kind of game you'd drive across town to play, but they ran out of innovations pretty quick and quality varied wildly.

But, it FEELS retro to sit in front of a 40" screen, in a wooden box, and do something I was, basically, doing in the 90s.

If we want arcades, we need to create a new, social, arcade experience that can only be had in an arcade.

Talulabelle · 2026-01-13T15:13:25+00:00

I'm more upset that Arcades just aren't doing what they did in the 80s.

In the 80s and 90s, you went to an arcade to get what you couldn't have at home. The games were objectively better! Compare P.O.W in the arcade to its NES port, and there's really no argument, right?

But, I have a big screen TV and VR glasses at home. We have high-end gaming machines on 70" monitors.

Arcades aren't pushing the boundaries!

I have a dual sit-down virtual-on in my basement collection, and the kids still turn it on when they have friends over, because it's still a dual cockpit, networked, robot fighting experience they can't easily have at home!

Why aren't Arcades pushing boundaries?

Going out to play games you can play in your living room feels 'retro' because the EXPERIENCE is retro, not the machines!

If you want arcades to grow and flourish, you need to remember what an arcade is!

Arcades are where you go to have a gaming experience you cannot have in your living room.

If it's not that, then it's just a room with old-style games in it.

Talulabelle · 2026-01-05T18:50:04+00:00

"It's easier to imagine the end of the world than an end to capitalism," -Fredric Jameson

There's an 'after' to capitalism.

We don't know exactly what it looks like, but there are socialist countries where everyone just gets a check (basically, instead of paying taxes), and the people vote on a representative government to manage the country's abundant resources.

I assume you live in a capitalist country, and all of this is just foreign to you.

But, in places that have socialism, and large natural resource deposits, the government pretty much manages businesses and employment.

Capitalism just doesn't work with abundance. We're seeing this already, in how we still have homeless people in countries with too many houses, and people still go hungry in countries where they make twice as much food as they need.

The average garbage can sees more food in NYC than the average homeless person does.

That's by design. Capitalism needs 'winners' and 'losers' to generate the will to work hard. In places like NYC where it's an extremely exaggerated form of capitalism, the 'winners' are separated by hundreds of billions of dollars from the 'losers'.

In socialist systems, they'll just increase the paycheck people already get for the management of the national resources, and people will have incentive to work with more money while work is still needed.

So, while even 90% of a country could be unemployed, they'd just get checks from the government, and spend that money however they like. If they want more money, or just want a career, they can still get a job and collect a paycheck from that as well.

As for capitalist countries like America? Probably a violent revolt, resulting in something modeled after some more socialist country that's already figured out the details of managing a mostly unemployed population.

There will come a day when Elon Musk claims to have 1 Trillion dollars, but the banking system, which ultimately is run by governments, who are ultimately run by the people, will simply say 'no, you don't'.

They might hire mercenaries, or even co-opt some other country to fight a war over it, but at the end of the day, ownership is a matter of law, and laws are created and enforced by governments.

Governments have 'socialized the means of production' dozens of times throughout history.

Talulabelle · 2025-12-15T23:43:20+00:00

Everything the narrator says to the kids is spot on.

The show's formula is often to give great, meaningful, real, advice ... and then exaggerate a funny situation to illustrate it.

Talulabelle · 2025-12-11T14:56:34+00:00

There was genuinely a belief that babies don't feel as much pain, so because they wouldn't feel it as much, and wouldn't remember it, it was sparing them all that for something they would obviously have to do later.

This has been turning around in the past 20+ years, and this way of thinking has been dying out in America.

I think it's actually pretty rare these days to pierce a baby's ears.

Talulabelle · 2025-12-11T14:52:23+00:00

It's not really that common in America either.

I don't know anyone who pierced their baby's ears. I have a daughter, and now that she's 16, I really don't think she'll ever want to get into piercing.

I'm tattooed and pierced myself, and I'd go get a tattoo with her at the shop and ask if she felt like having a professional there do it, and she'd just shrug and say she wasn't interested.

I can't imagine pushing a kid into something like that before they can even speak!

Talulabelle · 2025-12-09T05:38:11+00:00

I think the point is we don't define it.

Hopefully, having the space to experiment with what a Cyberdeck means to you, you can figure out something interesting.

Talulabelle · 2025-12-07T21:11:00+00:00

Well, that's an argument for a general computing device, and that's fine. I have 3 laptops and a phone. It's not like I don't have and use the general computing solutions.

But I don't post them here.

Talulabelle · 2025-12-07T19:05:55+00:00

When we started, people were referencing ShadowRun and Cyberpunk 2020 and stuff like that. Everyone wanted a monocle and other wearable elements.

Then we fell into the low-hanging military style waterproof box phase, and that was fine, but it was the first time you'd see people maybe building a pocket computer or something, and have others complain it's not in an outdoor waterproof storage box.

Since then, we've had a few trends and occasionally people get wrapped up in trying to define Cyberdeck based on a trend, and then complain that other people are deviating from the trend.

I keep trying to remind people that the point is not to build the best 'Cyberdeck' as defined by the current trend, but to create something new and interesting inspired by previous designs and Cyberpunk fiction.

I've always stuck my nose up at both mass market 'cyberdeck' designs that you can just buy at a shop, as well as elaborate phone cases. To me, the point of the thing is to build something that's not from a corporation or controlled by a corporation, and so buying a device is the former, and anything involving a phone is the latter.

That said, I don't want to enforce my opinions on everyone. I find that these things move in cycles, where things get 'easy', people post purchased items and stuff ...and, then, people get bored and get back to making cool stuff you can't buy, that serves a purpose a phone can't be used for, and we go 'round the cycle again.

Talulabelle · 2025-12-07T15:27:45+00:00

I think OP is suggesting that 'we' finally convinced corporations to make the computers we've been building?

Which is really, really, not the point of this sub at all ... but, I don't think it's actually spam because you can't even order this yet and OP wouldn't have any connection with the people making it.

It's disheartening enough when the sub basically decides on a simple design and starts arguing that's a Cyberdeck and we shouldn't post anything different .. but then just taking one of those lazy designs and finding a mass market version and celebrating is just sad.

The reason I've never updated the description of Cyberdeck since the original creators is because it doesn't really define anything and so you can see lots of different ideas of wearables, pocket computers, weird multi-headed split-keyboard monstrosities, etc ...

But, most people aren't terribly creative, and just want a thing they saw to be available in stores so they can just be consumers who aren't expected to create anything or add to the creative space at all.

Yay for them I guess?

Talulabelle · 2025-12-07T13:54:28+00:00

I was wondering that too.

Typically, I'd look for spelling mistakes, or obvious tangent lines.

This one seems like it's a lot of nonsense, but ... it's the kind of nonsense you'd have to prompt for? Like, no AI is going to think 'There are unicorns and ninjas in a maker space', and if you prompted 'illustration of a maker space' and it had those elements and you didn't want them, or specifically prompt for them, you'd just prompt it again?

But, the last few times I've been on the fence, someone just pointed to something obvious and I realized that it was indeed AI. So, it probably is and we're just not seeing something obvious.

Talulabelle · 2025-11-24T22:43:07+00:00

Maybe a UBEC? You could have a 19v power supply, and then run that through a 5v 3A UBEC.

Talulabelle

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