DIY Pocket PC Uses Mechanical Keyboard, Game Boy Elements, Raspberry Pi

If anyone uses a portable PC these days, it’s almost certainly a smartphone. But the Raspberry Pi has a way of bringing out the retro side of the enthusiast. Throw in a few old console pieces and a real mechanical keyboard and you have a homemade PC that fits in the palm of your hand.

Named Penkesu and published via GitHub by a user known as Penk Chen, the project is described as a “retro style homebrew portable PC”. It uses a 7.9-inch 400 x 1280 touch screen and Raspberry Pi Zero 2W. Other electronic components include a 3.7V lithium polymer battery and an Adafruit PowerBoost 1000C for power.

Chen 3D printed the PC case and shared the related STL files and STEP file. The manufacturer also used interchangeable hinges for the Game Boy Advance SP so that the PC could be folded.

“Repurposed Game Boy Advance SP hinges and HDMI ribbon cable are used to keep the hinge thin, but [they support] the weight of the display so it doesn’t tip over,”Penske wrote on Github.

Those who yearn for the days when portable keyboards weren’t just touchscreens can appreciate the compact Penkesu mechanical keyboard. It is ortholinear, meaning all keys are in aligned rows and columns, just like in a grid. The keyboard uses Kailh Low Profile Choc V1 mechanical switches and an Arduino Pro Micro microcontroller board.

If you haven’t given up on pocket PCs, instructions for building your own Penkesu are on Github, as the manufacturer has no plans to sell PCs.