Thirty keys, and I’m calling that a feature.
NickZero’s Ultra Minimal Cyberdeck is six steps on Instructables, and the parts list is the whole machine, so I’m marking it line by line.
- The Raspberry Pi Zero 2W gets a B+. It draws less power than the full-size Pis and pays for it in processing power, which is the right trade for anything that lives on a battery. My guess is a modern browser would bury it.
- A for the Gherkin 30% keyboard kit from Mechboards. Thirty switches, no number row, no modifier keys, and some soldering. The picture shows the ESC, ENTER and BKSP caps in green among white ones, so you can find the escape hatch by color, which is how I’d do it too.
- Waveshare 7-inch touch display: B-. It’s the same width as the keyboard, and the picture shows it sitting flush above the top row. A touch screen on a deck that already has thirty keys is a second way to do the same job.
- The Adafruit PowerBoost 1000 and its 4000mAh LiPo earn a D. My math says 4000mAh at 3.7V is 14.8Wh, and the case caps the cell at 5mm thick and 50 x 100mm, so that’s your ceiling; no fatter pack when you want more hours. Worse, the power switch doesn’t shut the system down cleanly, so you type a shutdown command before you flip it.
- The 3D-printed case rates a B: everything laces together in it, though you need a printer with a fairly large bed.