Comment by frio
2 days ago
I feel this a lot too these days. The only place the fun seems to remain for me is in Linux and in devices out of China, that you can hack and experiment with — like the Anbernic consoles, or the Xteink X4, or the little mp3 player DAP things, or the Sipeed NanoKVM devices, or the Supernote. The Steam Deck probably sits in this niche too, now I think about it.
Alongside the purpose they serve, all of them can be trivially broken into and re-tooled however you like — and for me at least, that’s where a lot of fun lies in computers. When it comes to mainline desktops now, everything is incredibly expensive and deflating.
What sorts of things do you do with a NanoKVM?
Mine hasn't actually arrived yet! I'm still waiting for it in the mail. I don't think I'll tweak that much, all I really want to do is flash the published open source firmware, attach it to my tailnet and use it to control a little server I keep in the crawl space under the house (because crawling under there whenever it needs a reboot + entering disk encryption keys is distinctly unpleasant).
Ah fair enough. I thought you were talking about hacking it to do novel things. :)
I have one on a server. The server itself is accessible (it's in the rack cabinet I have in the office) but sticking a display on it is fiddly on a good day, so it's been a major QoL improvement!