John Anderson's Upcycled Microchip AVR Programming Deck Boasts a Kaypro Keyboard and Atari Styling
Two broken Kaypro keyboards and an Apple monitor in need of repair deliver the parts required for this retro-style Raspberry Pi cyberdeck.
Developer John Anderson has built a cyberdeck designed for Microchip AVR microcontroller development, and which hides its modern innards behind a 1970s/1980s Atari theme — complete with a keyboard salvaged from a classic Kaypro microcomputer.
"I went with a late '70s Atari theme with this one," Anderson explains of his latest cyberdeck build. "It's built from a couple Kaypro keyboards with broken switches that were being parted out on Ebay. So, it has a legitimate late '70s early '80s computer feel. I bought them and built one good keyboard out of them.
"I then wrote a user mode Linux serial keyboard driver so I could connect it to a Raspberry Pi 4. Lastly, I installed the [Raspberry] Pi inside the case along with a power supply, wired up an interface board for AVR programming, added a USB Wi-Fi dongle to simplify installing an external antenna, and brought out some of the ports on the rear panel."
As Anderson explains, the machine's keyboard is straight from a 1970s Kaypro microcomputer — though, thankfully, no working Kaypros were harmed in its production. The redecorated Kaypro keyboard case, adorned with an Atari badge, features the Raspberry Pi 4 single-board computer that connects to a Microchip AVR UPDI programming setup housed above the keyboard — complete with a solderless breadboard and a dedicated power supply.
The rear of the case brings out various ports — with a six-pin aviation-style connector used to connect to the AVR UPDI programmer, full-size USB ports for peripherals, banana-plug power outputs for 3.3V, 5V, and 12V regulated DC power outputs, and a composite video connection. This, rather than the more modern HDMI connection available on Raspberry Pi single-board computers, is used to connect the cyberdeck to its monitor: a classic 9" Apple G090H.
"This one was another Ebay buy," Anderson explains of the monitor choice. "It was in pretty nasty shape and the plastic was severely yellowed. So, I took it apart, replaced a fuse, cleaned up a few pots and adjusted the picture. I painted the case while I had it apart. It works great with the Pi composite video output. It took a bit of work tweaking the settings in [Raspberry] Pi OS Lite to get a good stable picture."
More details are available in Anderson's Reddit post, while the keyboard driver's source code and installation instructions are available on GitHub under the permissive MIT license.