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Hosaka MK I "Sprawl Edition"

The Hosaka Mark I Cyberdeck is a tribute to William Gibson and his work, which still fascinates many today.

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A tribute to William Gibson and the Neuromancer novels. This is the result of a mixture of love for literature and technology.

Motivation

The novel Neuromancer (and the entire Sprawl trilogy1) by William Gibson has been an inspiration to a large number of people since its publication in 1984 until today.

The technology Gibson describes has a very specific appeal, then as now. But in contrast to 1984 it is nowadays easy to build a fully functional computer by yourself, just think of the Raspberry Pi single board computers. That’s the reason why you see more and more cyberdecks today, like Gibson described them or like you would imagine the cyberdecks in his novels. To be honest, very few of them look the way I imagine them to look. Even my own cyberdeck, the Hosaka Mark I “Sprawl Edition” doesn’t look like the portable computers the console cowboys use to enter the cyberspace. But, most importantly, all those cyberdecks could be part of the novels of William Gibson. 

The Hosaka Mark I is a tribute to William Gibson and his work, which still fascinates many today.

“The sky above the port was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel.”
William Gibson

Technical Overview

The main components of the Cyberdeck are a Raspberry Pi single board computer and a 7" touch display. Furthermore there is an ESP32 µC, which controls the RGB LEDs on the backside and a radio module with amplifier and two speakers. The (not absolutely necessary) cooling is provided by a Noctua fan which is mounted on the case. But this is mainly a design element. The USB and network ports are on the outside, so is the USB port of the ESP32. With a USB cable bridge you can connect the RPi directly to the ESP32 from the outside and program it. The Raspberry can boot from two different SD cards, which can be selected with a switch on the front. The Cyberdeck has a modular design. Inside there is a kind of skeleton, which can hold the different components and can be adapted to other components.

Frame
Frame 1 of 6 - together they form the skeleton inside the cyberdeck

Neodymium magnets are installed on one side of the housing. This makes it possible to attach extensions to the deck.

Add on
This test print doesn't fit 100%

Design & 3D-Print

The Hosaka Mark I is designed with FreeCAD and printed on a Prusa MK3s.

This is not an easy print! You need a sufficiently large print bed (min. 210 x 200 mm) and a well calibrated printer. I printed all parts on a Prusa MK3s and some parts went slightly over the theoretical maximum print size.

Front housing
Print bed fully utilized

There are some multicolor parts included, but all can be printed with a simple filament change during printing. Here are some examples:

Raspberry module
Some early test print
Display
The display module

When I started the project, I had a very specific design in mind. So the shape of the housing was decided pretty early. And I knew what I didn't want in any case, namely to fix everything inside with glue or just throw it in. I wanted the Cyberdeck to be as modular as possible, so that even when assembled, individual components could be replaced. Inside, a kind of skeleton holds the cyberdeck together and also serves as a carrier for the components installed inside and outside.

Cyberdeck opened
A view inside

A big advantage of this is that I don't have to change/reprint the case when I change individual parts. I only have to reprint either the module in which the part sits and/or the corresponding frame part inside.

Some Random Images

The RGB stripe on the back side iluminates the "brand logo":

Brand logo
Sprawl Edition

Half Cyberdeck:

Half Cyberdeck
Fully functional

There are plenty of threaded inserts used:

Threaded inserts
Threaded inserts
Threaded inserts
More threaded inserts

The cyberdeck at the tailor: "Sew on straps and embroider a logo please!"

Side view with a look at the charging port:

cyberdeck.FCStd

Pay attention! FreeCAD files are hard to edit anyway and my project has become quite a mess over time...

x-extension-fcstd - 12.74 MB - 09/30/2022 at 16:30

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hosaka_mark_one_stl.7z

.stl files for 3D printing

x-7z-compressed - 5.86 MB - 09/18/2022 at 20:41

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bom.sc

Bill of Materials (sc-im spreadsheet-calculator format)

spreadsheet - 15.74 kB - 09/18/2022 at 13:20

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  • 1 × Raspberry Pi
  • 1 × 7” Touchscreen
  • 1 × LiPo Battery
  • 1 × Adafruit PowerBoost 1000
  • 1 × ESP32 µC

View all 13 components

View project log

  • 1
    Step 1

    (I made a build video - however, it's been waiting to be edited for...some time.... At least it's in the works now!)

    Preface

    The main difficulty in the construction is actually just printing the parts and finding the right components. In the spreadsheet all parts are listed, with source of supply; many parts you will also be able to replace with others. For some parts, however, the dimensions must fit exactly, such as the speakers and the Noctua fan. Otherwise, the case would have to be adapted.

    The largest parts are the four housing parts. Together with the "skeleton" parts inside, they form the basic framework of the deck. Both the "skeleton" and the individual modules can be customized depending on the hardware used. This requires some experience with CAD software though.

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Discussions

mcmadhatter wrote 10/13/2022 at 18:59 point

This looks really good, out of interest, what filament did you use? The colours go really well together.

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Chris wrote 10/13/2022 at 20:51 point

Thanks. For the main parts I've used Fillamentum PLA ivory and Extrudr PLA NX2 grau. The brown and red are some standard PLA.

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David Clabaugh wrote 09/27/2022 at 07:23 point

Such an awesome project! and so glad to see someone build something for him and his story. It had such a huge impact and I love both trilogies. I have been working on some scenes in Unreal to make some parts of Neuromancer an interactive experience with Molly and Case. This is such an inspiration!

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Chris wrote 09/27/2022 at 21:16 point

Thank you very much! That's nice to read that the novels are still an inspiration for many. Your project with Unreal sounds really interesting!

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whoobee wrote 09/25/2022 at 19:27 point

Awesome job! It is amazing how clean everything looks and the color scheme is spot-on :) Congratulations!

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Chris wrote 09/26/2022 at 09:53 point

Thank you! I'm happy that you like it! I really like the colors too. :)

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Melissa Matos wrote 09/20/2022 at 13:55 point

This thing is awesome!

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Chris wrote 09/20/2022 at 16:46 point

Thank you Melissa! If anything gets out of hand, I call Death Star Tech Support! :D

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Richard Hogben wrote 09/19/2022 at 23:28 point

Cooooool

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Chris wrote 09/20/2022 at 07:36 point

Thaaaank you :D

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Tom Nardi wrote 09/18/2022 at 21:02 point

I remember watching you piece this together on the Cyberdeck Discord, very glad to see it get documented here in all its glory. Truly beautiful build.

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Chris wrote 10/13/2022 at 20:53 point

Thank you for your kind words. I'm still trying to improve the documentation a bit - it's already taking longer than building the cyberdeck. :D

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