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so the goal of this whole project, as the previous posts hint at, is the design and production of a sorta mini cyberdeck pda handheld console kinda thing, heavily inspired in form factor by the t-mobile sidekick and on a more conceptual level by the old palm os pdas and the sqfmi beepy. it's actually an idea i've been toying with for like four years now (see third pic in my pinned post) and only recently decided to start acting on after getting paid for my work trip earlier this year and building my cygnus and thinking "how hard could it be? :neobot_woozy:"

now because it's such a funky form factor and input method for a computer (basically a gba with a scroll wheel and a mini keyboard; i originally wanted a resistive touchscreen too for drawing and as a fallback pointing device to be able to use normal desktop programs somewhat but the way sourcing the display is going i wouldn't count on it happening) it would either have to rely on tui programs almost entirely à la beepy, or have bespoke gui software made to properly leverage the control scheme

this is a problem, because i do want the latter, but producing such a bespoke software suite on top of all the hardware work would be a massive effort for just a personal project, so i'm trying to design it to be as reproducible as possible so other ppl could make one, and hoped to build just enough for a proof of concept that i could publish online and get other ppl to think "oh that's cool i wanna have one of those too" and help me finish it. but unlike a certain other recently-announced project with an inadvisably inflated scope, i don't have the concept artistry skills to advertise such a thing without actually uh. making the thing (i should try to get some updated ui mockup pics going tho)

tl;dr i'm attempting to make my own mnt nano reform in the style of "what if a t-mobile sidekick and a tapwave zodiac had a baby" and an ergonomically appropriate software suite and am in way over my head :neobot_sob: