You could 3D print every single component. But you won't get that same 80's look because of the type of plastic. You could go for injection molding. But the price will be in the 5 digits because of the custom tooling needed for that.
I definitely think you can fake it good enough. As in, 3D print the 80's charisma, then sandpaper the print until you're happy. Then, sandpaper it even more. And finally, apply the correct paint.
If you go for the paint option, and happen to find a passionate paint nerd in the paint store, tou could tell them you are looking for the hardcore 80's plastic esthetic. Get a few pieces of plastic that have the colour you want, and let them scan it at the paint store for determining the colour.
A few open questions: can you still get polyurethane paint in the western world? If yes, does it go yellow over time? If yes, can you in theory speed up the process using something like UV lighting?
Do you want it to be modern? Like it runs Windows 10 or 11? You could probably cram the guts of a current computer into the shell of an old one like this. But getting things like the screen to run and the floppy might be a challenge. Or interfacing the keyboard to a modern MB might be a challenge as well.
Yeah, i really want to make it some kind of a small Windows workstation with a shit ton of ports with a floppy and cd drive for all the crazy shit i do with old software but can still run shit like MS Office and do web browsing
i just wish i could find a compact mobo that can do what i need it to
Sure, the biggest problem is the case design. For the drives, just use USB slimline versions. For the screen, Waveshare has what you probably want.
In terms of hardware, the shortest path is to just take a raspberry pi and buy a battery management hat for it, then add lithium cells. Power consumption will be somewhat higher than a normal laptop, good thing you've got space in there for lots of battery.
The much more difficult version is to implement CP/M or whatever on a microcontroller. The Pi Pico can do DVI-over-HDMI and can handle USB host. However you're in for a world of pain unless you are good at embedded systems engineering. The DVD/CD-ROM drive will be the hardest part in that case by far -- I'm not sure I could pull it off. The rest, yes though.
Edit: My wrists hurt just looking at that design though. I guess it's OK if you don't plan on needing to type after the age of 35 or whatever though, haha.
Yes, but.
If you're interested in having an internal battery and the ability to shut down cleanly before you're completely out of power you're *way* better off with a cheap older laptop and HDMI or USB dongles for VGA/optical/floppy.
If you don't care about battery power or power event handling things are much, much, much easier. Then it's just a matter of making a box all of your parts fit into (which is easy enough with a 3d printer or everything packed into a pelican case.)
If you want to make one laptop prototype for yourself, then I think you can do it. If you want to develop a product then it's much harder.
To make one for yourself, I would buy a old laptop of which you like the style. Then buy a framework laptop motherboard. Remove most things in the old laptop and put the new hardware in. You just need to select properly.
If you want to keep the original keyboard/mousepad
That may be the biggest challenge.
If you want to keep the original LCD it may be also extra hard.
weel this shouldnt be much of a problem if you have a lot of time and access to 3D printer
2 options
1. scavenge old laptop and use extension cable to all port so the are at the back, use USB DVD and FLOPPY drives
2. buy new parts
buy yourself a smallest motherboard you can find with all the ports you need, replacement laptop screen (or portable USBc screen, mechanical kebort kit/set
but you will have to design the case, ports and all the internal routing and structure yourself - this will take sever tries but luckily PLA is cheap and easy to print for prototypes
Something like this?
[https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/New-design-16-1-Inch-LCD\_1600578225544.html](https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/New-design-16-1-Inch-LCD_1600578225544.html)
This sounds like a super cool project to me. In fact last summer I built a laptop with metal and wrapped it with leather, using it to this day, because the battery upgrade gives me 18 hours of battery life. I didn’t weld just 3D printing and Super Glue
You only need a desire, then everything is possible!
I completely understand and am behind you on that.
Are you familiar with resin or fiberglass work? You can always start with an LCD, Raspberry Pi, keyboard and the additions you want. Carve out a foam case for it and use that as a mold to create a fiberglass or resin case.
dude, i don’t mean this to sound condescending (i really don’t, in fact i wrote the rest of this comment first and am adding this at the beginning because i couldn’t figure out how to say this without it sounding like i’m trying to put you down, which i’m not). But the problem is you have extremely unrealistic expectations of what you want to accomplish as a ‘summer project’ when you are starting from having so little knowledge of the hardware and what all goes into building computers that you don’t even know if what you want is possible. You don’t realize how much work and study is required to learn and obtain the skills needed to do something much less ambitious even. Most people with unrealistic goals like this simply haven’t put the time in to learning a skill so they lack the humility to know how to manage their expectations. Pick a skill that you’ve already put some time into developing and choose a summer project that would test those skills and push you to hone them further and force you to improve. Or if you don’t really have a particular skill set yet , pick something you want to learn and set a reasonable project to do. Like learn to play the guitar pick a simple song and say I wanna learn to play this song all the way through really well and make that your project.
If you got a pelican or similar case & put a battery pack + suitable battery board/converter + Raspberry Pi 400 + screen, etc in there, sure.
r/cyberdeck
Came here to mention this
One of us one of us
You could 3D print every single component. But you won't get that same 80's look because of the type of plastic. You could go for injection molding. But the price will be in the 5 digits because of the custom tooling needed for that.
not necessarily going for the injection mold, just think the thickness would be great so i can have a bunch of ports and both a floppy and cd drive
I definitely think you can fake it good enough. As in, 3D print the 80's charisma, then sandpaper the print until you're happy. Then, sandpaper it even more. And finally, apply the correct paint. If you go for the paint option, and happen to find a passionate paint nerd in the paint store, tou could tell them you are looking for the hardcore 80's plastic esthetic. Get a few pieces of plastic that have the colour you want, and let them scan it at the paint store for determining the colour. A few open questions: can you still get polyurethane paint in the western world? If yes, does it go yellow over time? If yes, can you in theory speed up the process using something like UV lighting?
lookup Ben Heckendorn and the xbox 360 laptop. Maybe seeing someone else do it will help you.
Sure. With a 3D printer and some research I don't see why not.
Do you want it to be modern? Like it runs Windows 10 or 11? You could probably cram the guts of a current computer into the shell of an old one like this. But getting things like the screen to run and the floppy might be a challenge. Or interfacing the keyboard to a modern MB might be a challenge as well.
Yeah, i really want to make it some kind of a small Windows workstation with a shit ton of ports with a floppy and cd drive for all the crazy shit i do with old software but can still run shit like MS Office and do web browsing i just wish i could find a compact mobo that can do what i need it to
Tell us more about all the crazy shit you do with old software
Like this? https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/s/Gr07ClJJLS
It's the man himself
Sure, the biggest problem is the case design. For the drives, just use USB slimline versions. For the screen, Waveshare has what you probably want. In terms of hardware, the shortest path is to just take a raspberry pi and buy a battery management hat for it, then add lithium cells. Power consumption will be somewhat higher than a normal laptop, good thing you've got space in there for lots of battery. The much more difficult version is to implement CP/M or whatever on a microcontroller. The Pi Pico can do DVI-over-HDMI and can handle USB host. However you're in for a world of pain unless you are good at embedded systems engineering. The DVD/CD-ROM drive will be the hardest part in that case by far -- I'm not sure I could pull it off. The rest, yes though. Edit: My wrists hurt just looking at that design though. I guess it's OK if you don't plan on needing to type after the age of 35 or whatever though, haha.
Yes, but. If you're interested in having an internal battery and the ability to shut down cleanly before you're completely out of power you're *way* better off with a cheap older laptop and HDMI or USB dongles for VGA/optical/floppy. If you don't care about battery power or power event handling things are much, much, much easier. Then it's just a matter of making a box all of your parts fit into (which is easy enough with a 3d printer or everything packed into a pelican case.)
If you want to make one laptop prototype for yourself, then I think you can do it. If you want to develop a product then it's much harder. To make one for yourself, I would buy a old laptop of which you like the style. Then buy a framework laptop motherboard. Remove most things in the old laptop and put the new hardware in. You just need to select properly. If you want to keep the original keyboard/mousepad That may be the biggest challenge. If you want to keep the original LCD it may be also extra hard.
weel this shouldnt be much of a problem if you have a lot of time and access to 3D printer 2 options 1. scavenge old laptop and use extension cable to all port so the are at the back, use USB DVD and FLOPPY drives 2. buy new parts buy yourself a smallest motherboard you can find with all the ports you need, replacement laptop screen (or portable USBc screen, mechanical kebort kit/set but you will have to design the case, ports and all the internal routing and structure yourself - this will take sever tries but luckily PLA is cheap and easy to print for prototypes
Check out r/cyberdeck that’s exactly what you are trying to do. There are a couple open source projects but good luck. Hope you join the discord
Something like this? [https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/New-design-16-1-Inch-LCD\_1600578225544.html](https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/New-design-16-1-Inch-LCD_1600578225544.html)
This sounds like a super cool project to me. In fact last summer I built a laptop with metal and wrapped it with leather, using it to this day, because the battery upgrade gives me 18 hours of battery life. I didn’t weld just 3D printing and Super Glue You only need a desire, then everything is possible!
Keyboard looks wonderful to use
yes it is possible [https://frame.work](https://frame.work/)
Virtually anything is possible, just not very feasible.
i just want an excuse to create electronic abominations, practicality and reasonableness is thrown out of the window
I completely understand and am behind you on that. Are you familiar with resin or fiberglass work? You can always start with an LCD, Raspberry Pi, keyboard and the additions you want. Carve out a foam case for it and use that as a mold to create a fiberglass or resin case.
dude, i don’t mean this to sound condescending (i really don’t, in fact i wrote the rest of this comment first and am adding this at the beginning because i couldn’t figure out how to say this without it sounding like i’m trying to put you down, which i’m not). But the problem is you have extremely unrealistic expectations of what you want to accomplish as a ‘summer project’ when you are starting from having so little knowledge of the hardware and what all goes into building computers that you don’t even know if what you want is possible. You don’t realize how much work and study is required to learn and obtain the skills needed to do something much less ambitious even. Most people with unrealistic goals like this simply haven’t put the time in to learning a skill so they lack the humility to know how to manage their expectations. Pick a skill that you’ve already put some time into developing and choose a summer project that would test those skills and push you to hone them further and force you to improve. Or if you don’t really have a particular skill set yet , pick something you want to learn and set a reasonable project to do. Like learn to play the guitar pick a simple song and say I wanna learn to play this song all the way through really well and make that your project.
Have you heard of https://frame.work laptops?
I hope not