Cyberdecks vs Nostalgia Fetishism
I recently gutted a rare computer from the 1980s and turned it into housing for a work of interactive literature. Responses so far have ranged from positive endorsement to palpable worry that I may have committed some kind of cultural crime.
The computer in question: The Amstrad PPC640
I like to build cyberdecks. If you don’t know what a cyberdeck is, that’s ok because nobody does really.
The term evolved from cyberpunk literature, specifically, (like most concepts in cyberpunk) from an idea in William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984). Gibson’s Cyberspace Decks are neural interface devices that allow users to jack into The Matrix, insert their consciousness into virtual reality, manipulate data, thwart constructs, and generally engage in all manner of dangerous and stylish corporate espionage. and a cyberdeck refers to the kinds of portable devices that an elite hacker might use to infiltrate their universe’s equivalent of The Internet.
Real world cyberdecks tend not to be used for anything quite so cool as their fictional counterparts. These days a cyberdeck is essentially any custom-made portable computer built more for it’s sci-fi aesthetic value than it’s functional computational power and their main purpose is to look like the kind of machine that a sexy street samurai would have slung over their shoulder.
William Gibson’s original decks weren’t laptops in the modern sense but as cyberpunk is largely visually welded to 1980s and early 90s design concepts, many contemporary cyberdeck builds borrow heavily from the “luggable” era of computers that looked less like consumer devices and more like experimental military field equipment.
Cyberpunk-adjacent objects tend to carry a 1980s aesthetic weight with them and the The Amstrad PPC line of computers (the 512 & 640) are easily two of the of the most cyberdeck-like objects ever put into production. There are plenty of “actual” cyberdecks that don’t scream “CYBERDECK!” as loudly as a PPC does. So when I stumbled upon a broken PPC640 on eBay for the unusually low-low price of ~£16, I knew I had to snap it up and try to reanimate its corpse. At the time I was working on a cyberpunk-themed interactive narrative which has a user interface that is styled after operating systems from the 1980s, so the opportunity was too perfect to pass up.
I removed its innards and replaced them with a Raspberry Pi, fitted a new screen and keyboard, sprayed it black and rewired the switches to do other things. The narrative was built in javascript and python as a react app, so I could use the raspberry Pi as a kiosk that connects to a the experience through a website which gives the impression that the device has it’s own OS.
I looked for feedback within the typical demographic of tinkerer nerds that dig this stuff, and while I got a lot of positive responses along the lines of: “This is a fun project that looks cool” (and I fully endorse those views), I also received more than a few comments that veered a lot closer to “I hope you didn’t irreversibly destroy a rare working example of modern computer history for this arguably pointless folly.”
This obviously effected me way more than it probably should have, given that I’m still thinking about it now.
It made me wonder where the line was, and how deeply I should be considering this burgeoning ethical standpoint that values collection and preservation over destructive modification.
I do somewhat agree with the overall sentiment: Preserving rare legacy tech is important. Everything but the screen appeared to be immaculate so I could have probably restored it if I had taken the time and care to do so. Someone out there might really have wanted this rare machine to do some very slow word processing. I can’t argue that I made it more useful, really, I just gave it a new purpose.
But nobody batted an eyelid when I disembowelled a Toshiba Rupo Word processor for the same basic reasons. I assume people probably actually thought “nobody needs that piece of useless junk, it’s not even aesthetically notable”, even if they didn’t articulate it. However, for a variety of reasons, The PPC 640 - Alan Sugar’s second or third most bizarre creation - is perceived at least by some as an undefilable relic that deserves preservation.
I was very aware of the PPC's aesthetic cachet (which is obviously why I desired it for my purposes), and I did briefly wonder what impact my actions would have on the future cultural value of an artefact like this, and at what point does modification become vandalism, but I went ahead with it anyway. I tend to approach my builds with a devil may-care attitude where utility trumps all, even if the utility gains are marginal at best, which is irreconcilably at odds with my own competing (if slightly less pronounced) desire for historical tech preservation.
I’m sure the cultural legacy of the PPC 640 is more than adequately preserved in a collection somewhere, with probably far less dings and scratches than my one has. But still, this particular device had enough of a reputation that multiple people expressed admittedly mild but legitimate concern that I might not have considered its cultural enough before I had my selfish way with it and destroyed its tangible value. And I didn’t immediately disagree with them.
It is a strange fence to be sat atop, because if I reject the notion of device manufacturers locking their devices down against my right to modify the consumer items I purchase, either physically or conceptually, then I don’t see why I should accept that line of reasoning from anyone else.
But still, I was left asking myself “Should I have restored or preserved this increasingly rare and magnificent beast instead of defiling it for my own selfish artistic purposes?”
Upon reflection though, the answer is: No. I don’t think so.
Of course im going to say that, because I can’t very well un-spraypaint it, but here’s my rationale….
First of all, the PPC640 was never a good computer. It was awkward and unloveable. Heavy and clunky, but surprisingly flimsy. It looked like a field device, but to say it ran on batteries is a gross exaggeration. It strolled on batteries at best (8 massive lead-filled ones) and it keeled over and died before it even got to the end of the driveway. Frankly, it strolled on mains power too.
The main reason it’s rare now is because its foibles largely prevented it from warranting much replication. It’s biggest selling point is the aesthetic. That led me to the conclusion that it deserves to be bought back like a cyborg phoenix from it’s own ashes far more than it needs a new 64 character lcd screen and it’s original motherboard, lest its helpful restorer finally boot it up after much toil and personal expense only to find that it’s actually just not a very good at doing much of anything except looking pretty.
Despite occasional debate within the online cyberdeck building community, there isn’t actually strict ontological standard for what constitutes a “real” cyberdeck. Some are sleek and beautifully engineered objects that look like boutique production-models. Others are mutant, post-apocalyptic chimera that look as though they’ve been cobbled together from whatever salvageable components were on hand, but I can’t help but assume that the vast majority of the PPC640’s cultural value, and a major driving force behind its status as being worth preserving in the first place, is exactly because it almost nails that very specific technofuturist aesthetic. It’s already basically a cyberdeck, all it needs to truly become the cyberdeck is rebellious liberation from the stifling confines of it’s own original corporate-mandated intended purpose.
From their beginning, cyberdecks have carried a connotation of technocratic resistance. The hacker is an inherently subversive archetype. They are the lone freelancer battling sprawling infrastructural might with skill and ingenuity. The deck is the instrument that balances asymmetrical power structures. It is the vehicle that allows the individual to compete against the overwhelming institutional superiority of big-tech.
Over time, the mythology of the hacker has crystallised to the point where a “real” deck is just one that belongs to a hacker. Whether it’s an untouched factory model awaiting modification, or an entirely self-built device made from reclaimed parts and improvised solutions, the hardware is almost irrelevant. If there is a single defining feature of a “true” cyberdeck, its conceptual: A cyberdeck has to signify some kind of narrative distinction between the individual user, and whoever controls the system they are interfacing with. It is a tool for pushback against institutional limitations on individual agency. Whatever the deck is built from, it needs to imply tension, autonomy, and a means of resistance to asymmetrical technocratic control, even if only symbolically.
I think lashing cyberdecks together from old broken and discarded bits of hardware like a true technowomble is at least half the fun of building them. I wish I could claim that my motives in doing so are purely to promote sustainability, open-engineering rights, reduce environmental impact, and stick it to big tech, but these are all incidental benefits. I mostly just like dicking around with the kinds of devices that a young me imagined I’d be using to do all my hacking when I finally grew up to be 1337 and I think late 80s themed retrofuturism looks cool.
I’m not advocating for wanton destruction of old and especially rare tech for the sake of some creative or aesthetic whimsy. I once tossed my first ever computer - another Amstrad (A CPC 6128) - in the rubbish because it had been taking up space for years by that point, and windows vista was probably on the horizon anyway, so who cares? I still occasionally check the dark corners of my mum’s loft, all these years later, hoping I made a mistake and it will be sat safely in a box alongside my pirated copies of Trapdoor and Steve Davis Snooker. I now deeply regret not hoarding every single CRT monitor I ever owned, as despite their previous ubiquity, they are becoming as rare as rockinghorse shit.
I have no idea how many PPC 640s exist now, but it’s probably not many, and now, thanks to me, there is one less.
But when I think of what I actually want that old phantom 6128 computer for, I have no answer for beyond pure nostalgia. I certainly don’t need it. I’d boot it up, play a game and a half of Trivial Pursuit from the 1980s, then it would be just more shit I’ve got mounted on my wall, or hogging my desk space. Another curious material item, on display for nobody but my own nostalgia. I only want it because it’s mine.
There are old hard drives from subsequent old computers that I would love to be able to get back again, but its the data on them that I want more than the actual hardware. The devices are exactly what they are: Obsolete consumer hardware
Tech is supposed to be useful. The modern age is different to other historical eras. These computers aren’t all whacky flying machines that each evolved to uniquely solve a set of problems. They don’t have obscure, but now unused processes that really need preserving. It’s the same shit we have now just not as good. Their status as technology makes them scream for applied purpose. A computer that doesn’t compute is pointless. And I firmly believe that these devices should live in an ecosystem that encourages upgrades and modification. The utility of any tech artefact is exactly what gives it its societal value. So I see no problem with replacing a consumer item that I own’s guts with arduinos if I’m actually going to use it even slightly more than if I didn’t and conceptually, there aren’t too many better forms for resurrecting ancient computers into than that of the cyberdeck.
The people who worried I’d committed some kind of crime against technological heritage were, I think, operating under the assumption that the correct move is to preserve the thing in amber, to freeze it at the moment of its historical significance and call that respect.
There’s something that feels right to me about the fact that corpus_abyssus, which is a narrative about the friction between human interiority and machine systems, lives inside a hollowed-out consumer device. I like the irony that the shell of something obsolete, something that failed to fully realise its own ambitions on its original terms, now houses a story about exactly that kind of failure. The machine didn’t work. I took its aesthetic and gave it a different purpose. That’s not so far from what cyberpunk has always been doing with the detritus of consumer capitalism: finding use in the junk, finding meaning in the wreckage, building something new from whatever the system left behind.
The most wonderful computational concept encoded in the mythology of the cyberdeck is that technology exists as an extension of its owner. It gets used, it gets modified and repaired and pushed into service in ways its original manufacturers never intended.
The act of modification is the cyberpunk gesture.
Modification is resistance.
A Raspberry Pi in an Amstrad case serving subversive interactive literature through wireless cyberspace is the delivery of the legacy that The PPC640 never even knew it was supposed to have.
He’d operated on an almost permanent adrenaline high, a byproduct of youth and proficiency, jacked into a custom cyberspace deck that projected his disembodied consciousness into the consensual hallucination that was the matrix.
-William Gibson, Neuromancer
If you want my opinion - you bought it and it’s you’re right to do whatever you want with it. And the deck looks pretty cool after your mods. If something’s valuable enough to preserve, the market normally gives a better price signal than the 16 quid you paid for it.