Apple could have sealed BlackBerry’s destiny once they launched the iPhone, however many people miss having a bodily keyboard. Touchscreen keyboards all the time appear to be a compromise and so they’d be insufferable if it weren’t for autocorrect. When you’re doing a variety of typing, a bodily keyboard remains to be superior and BlackBerry keyboards are a well-liked choice, even at the moment. Redditor ZitaoTech took benefit of a BlackBerry 9900 keyboard to construct this pocket PC-style cyberdeck.
The BlackBerry 9900 was one of many final BlackBerry fashions in the marketplace and had a very nice keyboard. The 9900 had a touchscreen, so the keyboard was compact and featured an optical trackpad on the high. Surprisingly, you’ll be able to nonetheless discover new BlackBerry 9900 keyboards to make use of in your initiatives and that’s precisely what ZitaoTech did.
ZitaoTech’s cyberdeck is kind of a bit larger than a BlackBerry 9900, so it has sufficient room for some critical {hardware} along with the keyboard. There’s a full Raspberry Pi 4 Mannequin B in there, plus a 3.95” touchscreen with a decision of 720×720. There are even two 18650 lithium batteries and ZitaoTech says that they’re good for 8-9 hours of use.
To get the BlackBerry 9900 keyboard linked to the Raspberry Pi SBC, ZitaoTech designed a customized PCB based mostly on a Raspberry Pi RP2040. That reads the enter from the keyboard and passes it alongside to the Raspberry Pi SBC like a typical USB HID for optimum compatibility. That customized PCB additionally has the {hardware} to regulate the opposite capabilities, reminiscent of charging.
These parts all match right into a tidy 3D-printed enclosure. That makes a number of necessary issues accessible, together with the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO pins, USB ports, and Ethernet port, in addition to the batteries for every substitute.
ZitaoTech says that they’ve a plan to promote this cyberdeck sooner or later, so you’ll want to hold an eye fixed out for that if you wish to get your personal arms on one in all these.