AT-B3 cyberdeck

Topcon makes levels and surveying equipment - during a scrounge in a secondhand store I came across a case for one such level, and felt it the perfect fit for a cyberdeck, and here's the result.

I've leaned into the case a bit by keeping the model name of the level that was originally in the box, and slapped on a fun little subtitle. Adding the logo, colors, and font the company uses to Conky made it easy to carry the theme forward, and the desktop background is a nice little reference to the actual item that used to be in the case.

I have no affiliation with Topcon, and doubt they'd very much enjoy what I've done to their stuff, but I would like to share with you all that these cases quite often pop up from sellers on Ebay for a newer model (AT-B4 and "AT-B series"), but they're identical. Sokkia makes an identical case for their B40A and B30A in red, if that's more your fancy and you're in the US ;)

The hardware itself isn't very spectacular:

• RPI 4 8GB
• JJ50 with black switches and candlelight LEDs (the result is an odd, constantly changing light grid, it's quite cool), with the Susuwatari keycaps
• Joystick mouse wired up to a Digispark
• Random 1080p non-touch screen
• USB C powerbank in the bottom half
• Some random IO
• A flat VGA cable to connect the keyboard and joystick mouse to the RPi
  • Note: Replaced with an old IDE cable soldered some breadboard with some JST-XH connectors. the VGA cable was quite unreliable.
• A toggle which shorts pin 3 to ground to wake the Pi, with a script listening for a raising edge to detect when the switch is flipped and the short to gnd is broken to shut the PI down graciously (effectively this, but with a bistable switch: https://howchoo.com/g/mwnlytk3zmm/how-to-add-a-power-button-to-your-raspberry-pi)

This was built as a prop for a SciFi LARP, but it functions perfectly well as a full-fledged computer, and I've programmed several arduino's with it 'in the field' - it mostly lives in the trunk of my car with the USB C angle connectors unplugged.