The NX-Yamato Cyberdeck Is Big and Beautiful

A “cyberdeck” is — or at least was — a fictional type of computer that played prominently into William Gibson’s 1984 novel Neuromancer and its sequels in the Sprawl trilogy. Gibson’s work was iconic and immensely influential in the tech world, and especially hacker subculture. Because of that influence, there is now a thriving community of people who build their own custom cyberdecks in the real world. As described in the fiction, cyberdecks are portable computers with enough power to access the “Matrix” and to run hacking software. This “NX-Yamato” cyberdeck is larger than the others we’ve seen, but its plus-sized curves are just as sexy.

The exact look of a cyberdeck is up for debate, since they were only described in words. Even in the fiction, “deckers” build and customize their cyberdecks to suit their individual needs. That leaves a lot of room for interpretation, though most cyberdeck builds we see resemble something like a Commodore 64 with a screen stuck on top. The NX-Yamato, built by BlastoSupreme, adheres to that — just on a larger scale. A full-size mechanical keyboard sits in the center of the device, and yet it only takes up about half of the overall width of the cyberdeck. The keyboard is connected to a Raspberry Pi 4, and the display is a 10.1” GeeekPi 1280x800 LCD. An Arduino Pro Micro is also present for interfacing with buttons and the mouse joystick.

That hardware is fairly common among cyberdeck builds, and it’s the enclosure that really makes this project stand out. It was 3D modeled in Autodesk Fusion 360 CAD software, which BlastoSupreme learned how to use specifically for this project. They did so partially with the help of a book I happened to have written, which is something every author loves to see! The enclosure was 3D-printed in sections using PLA filament and then smoothed out with a coating of 3D Gloop. BlastoSupreme then went through the laborious process of sanding, filling, and priming the enclosure until they achieved a beautiful smooth finish. The completed NX-Yamato cyberdeck looks absolutely fantastic, and should be an inspiration to all of the budding deckers out there.