I was fortunate enough to have two Cybiko classics. Those were the only two I ever saw in my life. I remember a program on Windows that allowed me to use AIM wirelessly from one Cybiko, with the other connected to the PC with the AIM client. I only used that for a couple of hours. I don't remember the details, but it wasn't very practical. It was still freaking awesome.
Dealing with a Cybiko Classic in 2022
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Re: Dealing with a Cybiko Classic in 2022
#12I wanted one of these so bad as a teen. SO BAD. But alas, I grew up poor. My cyber deck dreams would take years to come to fruition.
Looks like a wannabe designer was given too much leeway to turn their concept sketches into a real product.
It was the late 90s/early 00s, funky organic designs like that appeared fairly regularly in computing peripherals.
Re: Dealing with a Cybiko Classic in 2022
#13It is like a crime against all of technology that there is no equivalent of this today.
We have smartphones, but battery life sucks and they have no real local mesh support, and no expansion port.
We have lots of dev boards, but no real finished products without exposed PCBs, and with a proper app-capable OS. And the ones that are reasonably polished are far too expensive for a semi-novelty.
The closest is maybe... pwnagotchi? A graphing calc?
I just want like, a little ESP32 handheld, with an m.2 slot or something in the traditional place for cartridges, and the ability to run apps from files on SD cards(Even if they're just MicroPythons).
But somehow all the "Hacker's handhelds" and the like seem to go nowhere, and are basically just an Arduino with a screen, meanwhile phones never get the expansion pack and local mesh capabilities the cybiko had.
Cybiko was a lot of fun. It would have been better with some AAA games, but it was still awesome.
Re: Dealing with a Cybiko Classic in 2022
#14Remembering and adoring the idea of this device as a teenager (and realizing the impracticality), it's insanely irksome to me year after year going to Defcon and seeing #badgelife that totally outclass this thing from a hardware design and creativity perspective but completely fall flat on the software/usability front.
I can guarandamntee that any team putting together a badge with these features would have everyone in the damn con playing with the thing all weekend and onward...
Re: Dealing with a Cybiko Classic in 2022
#15I picked up a couple of these when they were being closed out, thinking I would find an interesting use for them later, or at least something for the 900MHz modem module. Never did. Gave them to a thrift store when cleaning out for a move over a decade ago.
They were awkward to use, both physically and from a UX perspective. I wasn't drawn into any of the games, but I haven't taken up video games much in a long time now. I had plans to code something up for it but I don't think I ever even compiled "hello, world" or the equivalent.
Something like the TTGO Lora devices would be more fun to hack on in 2022.