This little nostalgia hit by SQFMI SQFMI was everywhere when it hit the socials last month. We thought we’d revisit it to give the project another boost and take a closer look inside this Raspberry Pi-powered Blackberry-like handheld.

Raspberry Pi Zero W powers this portable computing device, billed as “the ultimate everyday hacking gadget”. You can use Beepberry as a straightforward pager, running iMessage, WhatsApp, and so on, or as a hackable cyberdeck device. It can, of course, run any Linux application that runs on Raspberry Pi.

Hardware

• Raspberry Pi Zero W
• Adafruit’s Sharp Memory 2.7″ LCD display
• Tactile keyboard with touchpad
• LED for notifications
• LiPo battery
• On-board RP2040 MCU

Iconic keyboard

We thought we recognised the tiny keyboard, and the schematics are indeed based on BBQ20KBD, an open source design by Solder Party. It last featured on the blog inside this glorious Clamshell BlackBerry cyberdeck.

I don’t know whether my thumbs have grown considerably bigger since the the early 2000s or whether it’s just that my dexterity has gone the way of my youth, but there is absolutely no way I can type with any speed on an original Blackberry any more. Perhaps I’ve de-skilled myself by only having to slide my thumb lazily over my massive touchscreen phone for too many years.

Join the Beepberry community

Beepberry is so iconic it has its own Discord. Grab your invite and join in the fun. By the way, did you know you can straight up just buy your own Beepberry?