This practice ‘writerdeck’ is a beautiful digital typewriter from one other time

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A “cyberdeck” is a conveyable, handmade laptop impressed by William Gibson’s science fiction of the Eighties. It’s principally a cyberpunk laptop computer. A “writerdeck,” then, is an identical idea however just for writing textual content. I’ve been dabbling with some industrial choices recently. However I believe each system classes may simply have a brand new champion: the Micro Journal Rev 2.1. Take a look at this lovely factor. Simply take a look at it!

Un Kyu Lee has been designing, 3D-printing, and hand-assembling a sequence of Micro Journal devices for the final couple of years, painstakingly documenting his efforts on YouTube and /r/writerdeck. Rev 2.1 is definitely his tenth technology (a minimum of) and a mild revision of an earlier mannequin. Lee’s selections are eclectic and extremely private—he’s acquired every little thing from a full-on mini-laptop design to a tool that’s only a 2.8-inch display you plug a keyboard into. One in every of his newest initiatives was creating a brand new, retro-futurist housing for an AlphaSmart Neo 2, a basic within the admittedly area of interest class of writing-only units from the 90s and 2000s.

However having adopted his work for a while, I believe the Micro Journal 2.1 could also be his masterpiece. It makes use of a 65% mechanical keyboard with a normal structure, which is extra user-friendly than among the ortholinear keyboards in different Micro Journals. It has a full LCD display as a substitute of e-ink for sooner response, and at 8 inches extensive it’s comparatively large in comparison with many of the shows on earlier Micro Journals. It has built-in batteries for portability, although they're AA and have to be swapped out by hand. Paperwork might be accessed through an internet interface from one other system or manually moved over from a USB drive.

And it’s powered by a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, so you may preserve it working WordGrinder (the targeted writing surroundings that’s loaded on by default) or flash it with an enormous number of different working techniques appropriate with the semi-standardized micro-computer. You might even flip it right into a basic recreation emulator if you happen to needed to. (Please don’t try this. Mr. Lee is a pleasant man and I believe it'd trigger him ache if he noticed it.)

The design appears like a good looking mix of suitcase typewriters and basic all-in-one PCs from the 80s, one thing that will match proper at residence subsequent to a Commodore 64 or Osborne 1. And people spherical knobs on the aspect aren’t simply ornamental! They’re up/down and left/proper buttons, giving much more satisfying tactility to the gadget.

<img decoding="async" data-wp-class--hide="state.isContentHidden" data-wp-class--show="state.isContentVisible" data-wp-init="callbacks.setButtonStyles" data-wp-on-async--click="actions.showLightbox" data-wp-on-async--load="callbacks.setButtonStyles" data-wp-on-async-window--resize="callbacks.setButtonStyles" src="https://b2c-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/image_27e411.png?w=900" alt="Micro Journal 2.1 writerdeck by Un Kyu Lee, internals exposed " class="wp-image-2975253" width="900" height="1200" loading="lazy" /> An earlier model of the Micro Journal 2.1 that exhibits the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, batteries, and wiring. Un Kyu Lee

You should buy the Micro Journal 2.1—together with a few of his earlier designs—from Un Kyu Lee’s Tindie store. (It prices $359 USD if you happen to’re questioning, which is so much lower than some related, less-capable designs within the Pomera and Freewrite strains.) However this stuff are rapidly turning into hard-to-find collector’s objects, as Lee builds every one by hand and solely has time for very restricted runs.

When you have entry to a soldering iron and a 3D printer, and if you happen to’re as much as the problem, you may construct it your self. As a devotee of open-source software program and {hardware}, Lee offers away the print information, directions, and a invoice of supplies for all his Micro Journal units on Github.