I love how unsexy it looks on the outside. Very 1970s.

In all my years using this website I have never so vehemently disagreed with a comment! :)

It is beautiful! It doesn't pretend, it doesn't hide away its screws, and it isn't cheap plastic.

It clearly was put together with thought and care[0], it is not a bunch of junk stuffed into a box (as in a standard hobby project); angles were planned, metal bent, accessibility considered (that screen angle!).

This is an island of effort in a sea of lazy, fast & cheap.

[0] https://unimplementedtrap.com/media/sb116/SB116-Side-thumb.j...

Agreed, “unsexy” was just meant to hint at the lack of any superfluous eye candy.

The only potential improvement is that the side panels might make access to the keyboard a bit cumbersome as-is, but changing that would make building it more complicated.

I’ve got an SB115 I found at a thrift shop. Got home later and popped a 9V into it and discovered to my delight that it had a screensaver! Very cool, I like to sit it next to my TI-89 for contrast.

What is an SB115?

Very good question, grandparent is ... intriguing.

I found a Japanese-market tv [1] but don't think it runs off 9 volts very well.

[1]: https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/HT-SB115-65UB10PB-Speaker-Blue...

This is very cool. Whenever I see things like this I feel it's really a lot of efforts to reach such sophisticated level. How does one get good with 1) embedded programming, 2) hardware design, and 3) 3d print without proper training?

That's why I usually respect hardware people a bit more.

By trying, also sometimes called self-teaching. If you are interested in something, you just search for information on how to do something and try until you succeed. There are many failures along the way, but in the end, typically you have something working, then next version is working even better.

Indeed. I guess I'm paralyzed and cannot move on somehow.

There are so many good resources that weren't available when I was learning. Online, and a good in-person mentor helps too.

Limor and crew does a great job: https://learn.adafruit.com Or start with the Arduino ecosystem: https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/what-is-an-arduino/all

I have accidentally joined to a Discord server which folks interested in programming. They're trying and poking around in an informed manner. These guys professional programmers (or aspire to be), and interacting them somehow broke my chains, and I'm learning and improving like the old days.

So, interacting with interested parties really helps.

Very cool!