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Comment by afarviral | Hacker News Reader

My dream computers tend to be handheld personal organizers with secret backdoors to the internet or hidden hacking features. They usually have strange monochrome displays. I love these dreams and wake up with with an intense sense of loss. My android phone is a million times more capable but doesn't spark the childlike hunger I feel for my mystical dream handhelds.

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I do feel for those sensibilities. It's like steampunk trying to realize the character in the waking world--but not quite with the full suspension of disbelief.

I got psyched by a dream once, I woke from a dream pleased to realize that the crystal structure from the dream was still here with me. I remember saying (while looking up at the structure), "That's nice usually when you wake up from a dream you don't get to keep things". Then I woke up.

Some of the most silly fun I've had is with KnightOS [0], on a tiny TI-83+. A calculator, monochrome screen, but with a full C compiler on board, but available memory measured in kilobytes.

[0] https://knightos.org/

Zero Terminal v3 from N.O.D.E.: https://n-o-d-e.net/zeroterminal3.html

Clockwork Pi stuff may interest you. I have their DevTerm with an R01 SoM. It's fun and reminds me of older stuff.

https://www.clockworkpi.com/product-page/devterm-kit-r01

There's something about constrained computing environments isn't there?

A PocketChip like device with an Alpine/OpenWRT like OS with a QWERTY keyboard and a clamshell design. But cheap, no more than $100, unlike the OpenPandora.

So like a Ben NanoNote, then?

Mmhh, no. I had a zipit z2, and it was close. Something with a better and slightly bigger keyboard, with the size of a Nintendo DS. Enough to SSH confortabilty and run stuff well under CWM.

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