The Ceres 1 Raspberry Pi Cyberdeck Repurposes a Vintage VTech Talking Whiz Kid Portable

Pseudonymous maker "ThisIsTheNewSleeve" has taken a portable educational toy from the 1980s and turned it into a fully-functional cyberdeck dubbed the Ceres 1, complete with mechanical keyboard and Raspberry Pi inside.

"I made a retro inspired portable [Raspberry] Pi over the past two years," Sleeve writes of the project — launched during down-time at the start of the pandemic. "I call it the Ceres 1! After two years of working on it I'm honestly glad to have a break and just finally use it."

The basis of the build is a piece of genuine 1980s technology, the VTech Talking Whiz Kid. First released in 1986, the Talking Whiz Kid is a portable computer after a fashion: its tiny monochrome LCD display and membrane keyboard served to run educational software mostly focused on spelling and vocabulary training, with a Texas Instruments speech synthesis chip providing vocalization to help the learning process along.

The internals of Sleeve's version, however, have been entirely removed to make room for a selection of somewhat more modern components: a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ single-board computer connected to a GeekPi 7" HDMI display and a Drok Audio amplifier board, a pair of 5×5 mechanical keyboard PCBs, and a 6,600mAh lithium-ion battery pack linked to a power-boost module.

"There [are] a lot of 3D printed elements, mostly supports and a frame to hold the screen on," Sleeve explains of the build process. "At first I used a Gherkin 30-key mechanical keyboard but [then] switched to two 5×5 boards (with the top row empty) for an extra row of keys. [The exterior was finished with] spraypaint, sand, spraypaint, sand, spraypaint then varnish, sand, then varnish again."

More details on the project are available in Sleeve's Reddit thread and Imgur album.