Summary
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1979 Panasonic mini-CRT becomes cyberdeck — retro CRT meets modern hardware.
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Raspberry Pi 5 and a rechargeable Li-ion battery squeezed into a TV for modern computing.
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The mod retains the original pop-up screen, antenna and is completely reversible; connected to the antenna input.
Did you know that in the 70’s people could buy a portable CRT TV to take with them wherever they went? It looks like the laptop equivalent of the era, but the case was huge and the TV wasn’t the best quality. But he did You’ve got a CRT screen, and if you ask some retro hardware fans, that’s reason enough to fall in love with it.
Well, in the tried and true practice of DIY enthusiasts taking old gear and turning it into something new, someone took an old Panasonic mini-CRT from 1979 and turned it into a full blown cyberdeck. While I can’t imagine you’ll be watching movies anytime soon, it’s a great convenience to bring to the coffee shop.
This mini-CRT cyberdeck brings together nearly 50 years of technology
And it’s awesome
As seen Hackadaythis amazing project was brought to us by Luconaute on YouTube. They took the Panasonic TR-545 from 1979 and tweaked it to work with modern equipment. The Panasonic TR-545 had a power cord, but it could also drain a few large batteries, and as you can imagine, it chewed through them quickly. Fortunately, this large battery bank meant that the Luconaute had plenty of room to add some modern touches.
First of all, they installed a more powerful lithium-ion rechargeable battery because they didn’t want to buy batteries in a package. They had enough room to squeeze in a Raspberry Pi 5 to handle all the computing. Then they shut it all down and the coolest cyberdike anyone has ever made.
If you thought you’d see this in a 20th century cyberpunk movie, you’d be wrong:
This small pop-up CRT TV model appeared in the original Blade Runner movie. My goal was to maintain that charm, including the clunky pop-up screen and creaky antenna, complementing it with a satisfying folding mechanical keyboard. The mod is completely reversible and simply inputs video and audio through the TV’s antenna input.
If you want to read how Luconaute achieved this, they Uploaded a 240 MB PDF to Google Drive It describes the process that you can read at your leisure.
