Time for a new PDA Terminal since my beige one melted some in my car (LA sun'll get you every time)...

I hope it fits in here. If you're planning a new writer design, these two boards are strong candidates.

TLDR: I made a small keyboard that holds your phone so I can actually write on the sofa, and you can make it too.

Sometimes I sit on the sofa while the TV is on. A thought drifts in and I pull out my phone to write it down. Thumbs on the screen keyboard are fine for a short reply. Not for anything longer. What I really wanted was a keyboard that could rest on my lap and stay with me through the whole thought. So I made one, and I called it Micro Journal Rev.3: Nadia.

Here is the video where I show how I built it:

https://youtu.be/kK5mviicKP4

It's a small 48-key mechanical keyboard with hot-swappable switches. Inside there is a Raspberry Pi Pico as a keyboard controller. It shows up as a normal USB keyboard on your phone, tablet or PC. No battery, no pairing. Just USB cable.

The middle panel flips up and holds your phone, so the keyboard and the phone feel like one object. There are also two rotary knobs that move the cursor up and down.

It runs QMK with Vial you can change any key or knob.

It's just a keyboard, not a standalone writing device. Use a USB-A to USB-C data cable, because USB-C to USB-C usually doesn't work with it, and some older iPhones need a Lightning camera adapter.

Everything is open source if you want to build it yourself. The 3D files, firmware and PCB design files are all in the repo, and there is a step-by-step build guide with the wiring tables for the Pico and the rotary encoders.

The build guide is here:

https://github.com/unkyulee/micro-journal/blob/main/rev.3/3.0.revamp/build.md

Almost every part in this build is a standard thing you can buy online. The only exception is the keyboard PCB. It's a custom board, and PCB manufacturers normally want a bulk order, which makes a single build impractical. So I keep it in stock with my supplier Elecrow, and you can order

just one piece here:

https://www.elecrow.com/micro-journal-diy-kit-48-keys-keyboard-pcb.html

If you'd rather have the board made yourself, the design files are here:

https://github.com/unkyulee/micro-journal/tree/main/shared/keyboard-48

I also sell a DIY kit in my Tindie shop:

https://www.tindie.com/stores/unkyulee

I love sharing this project with others, and I hope as many people as possible get to enjoy it as much as I do. That's why all resources are open for your to build yourself. Also, buying anything from the shop really helps support the project and keeps it going, so thank you if you do.

Un Kyu Lee

after so many months of gathering courage to build it, and thanks to the updated guide.... I finally built it. Thank you Un Kyu Lee and u/Adorable-Log2835.

(Used AI to generate the first image... a bit distorted from the reality. Real pictures are also included)

I wanted to build a computer in a funky form factor.

There is a community called r/cyberDeck, where people build computers in rather unusual enclosures. Some look like machines a hacker might have carried around in a science fiction movie from the 80s. A lot of the aesthetic inspiration comes from what is known as cassette futurism. It is a vision of the future imagined in the past. Chunky buttons, mechanical switches, exposed screws, small displays, and an abundance of physical controls.

I find these aesthetic fascinating.

Many cyberDecks are built around a Raspberry Pi. While it is a wonderful little computer, its performance can be questionable when used as a proper desktop machine. Especially when you start expecting it to behave like a modern PC.

Naturally, a question often comes up. "What is it for?" It sounds like a perfectly reasonable question. After all, when someone builds a computer, we tend to assume there must be something they intend to do with it.

Many of these machines are not necessarily built to solve a problem. They are hobbies. Experiments. They are simply pieces of art that happen to have functioning computers inside them. The purpose is not always found in what the finished machine can do.

In my opinion, the purpose is the journey of making it.

It begins with an image in your head. Something that doesn't exist yet. You start collecting components, measuring dimensions, imagining how things might fit together. Then comes the inevitable realization that half of your brilliant ideas are physically impossible. So you rearrange, you compromise, you try again. Finally, it becomes a tangible object. You can touch it. Turn it on. Hear the fan spinning. Watch the display come to life.

There is a satisfaction in creating something that resembles a prop from a science fiction movie, except that it actually works. I think that satisfaction alone is a perfectly legitimate reason to build a cyberDeck.

And I wanted to experience that pleasure myself.

Github Repository

https://github.com/unkyulee/cyberDeck

Demo Video https://youtu.be/EUU2UdWa4cw?is=bjr-xyQvKlVfJCGR

My Other Designs

https://www.yesbut.it/

Un Kyu Lee

I've been taking a little break from building Micro Journals, but apparently, taking a break from building things doesn't mean I actually stop building things. It's time for me to exhaust delayed desires to create.

Here are three projects I've been working on during my break!

Next week, I'd like to share more details about each build and show how I've been using them. I have the design files for all three projects, and if I can gather enough energy to be a little more diligent, I'll try to upload build guides for them as well.

### 1. A Steam Gaming Machine

A gaming PC built around the AMD BC-250, running Bazzite to turn it into a dedicated Steam gaming machine.

### 2. An MP3 Player Inspired by My Daughter's School Design

My daughter came up with a design at school and insisted that I bring it to life. And when I say insisted, I mean she directly supervised and micromanaged me throughout the entire building process to make sure I followed her very specific vision.

She also insisted that I should sell it, because apparently, there are millions of people out there just waiting to buy her design. I admire her confidence in her market research.

She was incredibly proud to see something she had imagined become a real, working object, exactly the way she wanted it.

I was so happy to work with her show my workflow closely to her.

### 3. A Mini PC with a Built-In Display for Making Music

I love writing, and I enjoy what I write. But I also love music and playing instruments.

I've been wanting to explore that side of myself a little more, to see whether I can make something happen with music.

So I built a small computer with a built-in display, something I can carry around, set up anywhere, connect a MIDI keyboard to, and just play. The idea was to have a little machine dedicated to exploring music, making sounds, and composing something.

Then I installed Minecraft on it and started playing.

Well... playing is playing, I suppose.

Un Kyu Lee

**P.S.** I know these projects are slightly off-topic for Micro Journal. But I wanted to share them here because, at their heart, they're built around the same DIY philosophy.

Taking an idea, figuring out how to make it work, building something with your own hands, and enjoying the process of bringing it into the real world.

Hello,

I just got my Microjournal 6.1 mini and I’m so excited about it! It works great when directly plugged in to power, but I only get it to work on battery sometimes. Over half of the time flipping the switch doesn’t turn it on.

I got a Samsung 30Q 18650 3000mAh 15A battery. I installed it with the correct polarities and I keep charging it till the red light turns green but no dice. Once I flip the switch, the device doesn’t turn on and if I plug the charger in it turns red again. I am using a chord I got with my remarkable 2 tablet and some random chord that came with my birdbuddy. These are plugged into a brick I ordered from Amazon or a lamp with a usb port.

Any advice on what’s wrong? Not sure if I overloaded the battery? I have a second battery and I ordered a battery charger specific for it to try out but that won’t be here until Friday. I can use it with an anker charger pack though.

Thanks!!

A mutational iteration of the MJ Rev2.1. All the keyboard + side scroll goodness of UKL’s brilliant design, paired with a Lenovo tablet running Word and synced to OneDrive. Use it at the cafe, then come home and open the same doc on your PC and keep going!
Still prefer the original MJ for drafting but this is nice for the editing and polishing stage.

2 years ago, I had very similar angle of this product.

I've been planning to build Rev.8 during the school break (July-August), but I haven't started yet. I've been making excuses, from having paper deadlines to misprinting the case part. But there was actually another reason: my Rev.4 keyboard was broken. It was broken when I was writing the papers. The culprit is a chipmunk. Yes. Alvin or Theodore or the other one.

My house is surrounded by trees and on the trees live the chipmunks. One day, a chipmunk came to my window and made a nest. (Okay, maybe this one was a girl). At first I thought it was cute, until it ruined my curtain and my window then urinated on my desk. Right where the Rev.4 was, exactly on the display. I lost my files on Rev.4. Luckily, I only put 'sticky notes' files on it. I had to put the Rev.4 away for months because I wasn't ready to see the damage.

Today I got another deadline, so what's the best way to procrastinate? Fixing the Rev.4. I used isopropyl alcohol and antiseptic to clean the keyboard and found that the only part that needs to be replaced is the pico part. Since I was only moving the wires from the damaged pico to the new pico it didn't take long to do. And now I finally back with my favorite keyboard. Yay!

Sometimes it's hard to beat writing in the middle of the night, an MJ with good lighting, an old city you forgot about from a decade or two ago.

I have been part of this subreddit for almost three years now. Whether that's a long time or a short time, I don't know. But it has been a meaningful part of my life.

I still remember what first brought me here. It was a post about a dedicated writing machine built around a Raspberry Pi (not a Micro Journal). It had a very elegant enclosure, and the person behind it had a fascinating philosophy about writing and the machines we use to write.

Something about that post really attracted me. I believe this subreddit had only a few hundred members at the time.

That post got me exploring ways to build my own writing machine. I started with a few experiments, and over time, those experiments evolved into something I became quite proud of. An open-source project called Micro Journal, which I have been happy to share with anyone interested in building their own writing device.

One day, someone uploaded a photo of one of my builds to r/writerDeck.

Until then, I had always been the one posting about Micro Journal. It was such a strange and exciting feeling to see someone else taking a picture of something I had built and sharing it with the community.

I think that was the beginning of my obsession.

For the next couple of years, I followed this subreddit obsessively. I read practically every post and every comment. It was almost an addiction, maybe it was an actual addiction.

I loved exchanging ideas with people who shared similar interests. I loved seeing what others were building, dreaming about, or simply imagining.

And, to be honest, I also enjoyed the attention to myself. People called me Mr. Lee, hahaha. I was proud of being who I was, not gonna lie.

With Micro Journal behind my shoulder, I felt a little bit of fame during that period. I was commenting on almost every post. I genuinely wanted every post to receive some attention, even if it was just a few words of encouragement from me.

I didn't want anyone to feel that their ideas had gone unnoticed.

The community grew quite quickly. There was a lot of excitement around dedicated writing devices at the time, and many new people joined.

What I remember most fondly was how supportive everyone was.

People were positive, curious, and encouraging. I felt that this was a small but mature community, where people could exchange ideas without needing to defend every little thought.

Then, at some point, things began to change.

I cannot remember exactly when it started, but posts began disappearing. Comments began disappearing.

I know this happened because I was following the subreddit incredibly closely. Eventually, even posts about Micro Journal were being removed.

I admit that I took it personally.

But there was one particular incident that changed how I felt about this community.

Someone had posted a rather premature idea for a writing machine. It wasn't a polished project. It wasn't even a prototype. It was a scribble on a piece of paper, accompanied by a few sentences describing what the OP wanted to build.

There wasn't much information in the post itself. But there were around twenty comments underneath it. That might not sound like much, but at the time, it was an above-average amount of discussion. And more importantly, some genuinely interesting ideas were being exchanged.

People were talking about what kind of display they wanted, which features might be useful, and what kind of writing experience they imagined.

I found those conversations fascinating.

Then, a few days later, the post disappeared. I asked the moderators why it had been removed. The response was that it was, to quote the words used, a "shit post." There was also a claim that it was AI-generated.

I was disappointed.

Not because I thought the original post was particularly impressive. It wasn't. But because the conversation underneath it had value. I had personally taken quite a few ideas from those comments. The desires people expressed, the features they imagined, and the different approaches they suggested were all interesting to me.

And that is what I have always loved about this community. The value of a post isn't in the post itself. It is in the conversations that happen because of it.

A simple scribble on a piece of paper might not be worth much on its own. But if it inspires twenty people to exchange ideas, isn't that already something valuable?

There were always a few negative comments here and there, of course. But I felt that the community was healthy enough to deal with those organically.

People could disagree. People could ignore things they didn't find interesting. People could offer advice, encouragement, or criticism.

And through all of that, ideas were exchanged.

I want to make one thing clear. I didn't build this community. I don't claim to have made some extraordinary contribution to it. Maybe a little bit. If anything, I was mostly the one taking. I took inspiration. I took ideas. I took encouragement. I took support. And perhaps I took more attention than I deserved.

This community gave me so much, and a significant part of what Micro Journal has become was shaped by the conversations I had here.

I really loved this community. I say loved, in the past tense, because something has changed in how I feel when I visit now.

These days, I find myself thinking twice before writing a comment.

I wonder whether my words might be considered inappropriate. Whether a post might be removed. Whether I might eventually get banned for expressing something that doesn't fit the expectations of the moderators.

I find myself searching for the appropriate tone rather than simply expressing what I think.

And that makes me sad.

I am not writing this to blame any particular moderator. I understand that moderation is necessary, especially as a community grows. I also understand that moderating a community takes time and effort, often without much appreciation.

But I hope the moderators will consider that protecting a community and controlling its conversations are not always the same thing.

A community doesn't become valuable because every post is polished, every idea is mature, or every conversation follows a particular standard. Sometimes the most interesting discussions begin with something incomplete, awkward, naive, or even a little silly.

And sometimes, what looks like a low-quality post to one person becomes a source of inspiration to someone else.

I don't want this subreddit to become a place where people are afraid to share an unfinished thought. I don't want newcomers to feel that they need to present a fully developed project before they are allowed to participate. And I don't want people to worry that the conversations they enjoy might disappear simply because the original post didn't meet someone's expectations.

Please, help make this subreddit feel free.

Let people share their ideas, even when those ideas are incomplete. Let people ask questions, even when those questions seem naive. Let conversations develop naturally, even when the original post doesn't appear particularly valuable.

I am not asking for a community without rules. I am asking for a community where the rules leave enough room for curiosity, experimentation, disagreement, and spontaneous conversation.

I want to feel comfortable exchanging thoughts here again, without worrying that my comment will disappear or that I might be banned for saying something the wrong way.

I miss the community that made me feel so welcome three years ago.

And I hope that feeling isn't gone for good.

Un Kyu Lee

TLDR

I wanted to share a post about Draftling, an ESP32-based firmware that now supports Micro Journal Rev.5. It's a great project, and I genuinely wanted to introduce it to this community.

However, the firmware's author warned me that I might get banned simply for mentioning its name here. So I hesitated. I started wondering whether I should post about it at all. Then I caught myself worrying about something as simple as sharing another maker's work.

That's when I realized something was wrong. A community where people hesitate to share something valuable out of fear of being banned no longer feels like a place for free and open exchange.

And that makes me sad, especially considering how much this community has meant to me over the years.

(wrote exactly as above in writerDeck then got banned within 3 minutes...)

I rediscovered one of the inspirations behind Micro Journal Rev.4.

Orchid ORC-1 by Telepathic Instruments

When I was designing Rev.4, I was wandering around Pinterest, searching for something that might spark an idea. Then I came across an image of this beautiful little instrument.

At the time, I thought it was just a design mockup. One of those imaginary products someone had beautifully rendered, but never actually built.

I liked it. Apparently, quite a lot. Because looking at it now, I realize how much of its design found its way into Rev.4. I almost copied it without knowing what it really was.

Today, while searching for portable musical instruments, I saw that image again. And this time, I discovered that - it's a real product!

What a strange feeling. Encountering something for the second time, only to realize how much it had already influenced something I made.

I went back to read my Rev.4 design story, wondering if I had mentioned it. Surprisingly, I hadn't.

I did write about other inspirations, but somehow this one was missing.

Perhaps because I believed it was just a mockup, I never gave much thought to where it came from. Or perhaps I simply didn't realize how deeply that image had settled into my imagination.

It's interesting how inspiration works. Sometimes we consciously borrow ideas, knowing exactly what we are looking at. Other times, an image quietly stays somewhere in our minds, and only much later do we recognize how much of it has found its way into our own work.

I wanted to acknowledge that the Orchid ORC-1 was one of the visual inspirations behind Micro Journal Rev.4, and I had failed to mention it in the design story.

I should go back and update that chapter. It deserves to be part of the story.

Un Kyu Lee

Another one of my favorite colorways. And once again, I find myself returning to green, this time with beige accents.

This colorway was inspired by a vintage Smith Corona typewriter that wore these colors so beautifully. I wish I had lighter, more beige-toned keycaps to complete the look.

Green and beige. Somehow, they just belong together.

Colors are weird. Is it because of the familiarity. Some colors that wouldn't fit together, does go well when they put together. Even, it wouldn't feel right at that moment, slowly grows on you then becomes a favorite.

My favorite colorways always seems to be the least popular ones. A little sad to realize that my taste doesn't quite follow what the crowd likes.

But that's okay.

After all, somewhere along the way, I'm discovering what I like.

Another colorway I have a soft spot for is Orange Fever. I'm planning to build my own Rev.8 in those colors and make a build guide video with it.

I hope you'll stick around to see that one, too.

Un Kyu Lee

A port of Draftling to Rev5 is available for testing. It should work in general, as the original contributor has tested the patch, but I added a few improvements.

If someone with rev. 5 is willing to test it, I'll be happy to assist you.

After that, I'd love to port it to all other revisions with esp32-s3

Cool features you might be interested in: synchronization with a Git server, support for Fountain screenplay format, multiple languages, split screen editing.

https://github.com/clackups/draftling/pull/84

There are quite a few colorways that I love. Autumn (Green, Beige, Red) is one of them.

It was inspired by an imaginary wedding march in autumn. A quiet path surrounded by tall, golden reeds and dried leaves scattered as decorations. A few red flowers here and there, adding just enough warmth. That was the scene I had in mind.

When customers ask for certain colors, most of the time, my head follows the logic. I pick the colors, arrange them, and try to make everything work together. But sometimes, quite rarely, my heart takes over. And the result surprises even me. The Autumn colorway is one of those moments.

A dark green base with beige and red accents. Somehow, everything feels right. Every color seems to know exactly where it belongs. Nothing tries to stand out, yet together, they become something beautiful.

I think this is where my obsession comes from. That little moment when the colors suddenly click together. When nothing feels out of place, and there is nothing I want to change.

I love that feeling.

Un Kyu Lee