Sure thing, here’s a rewritten version:
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So here’s this wild thing—a YouTuber, can’t remember the name right now, somehow snagged this Steam Deck prototype. It’s one of those early versions, engineering sample 34 or something like that. This guy, Jon, from Bringus Studios, got it from a user—someone named SadlyItsDadley, which, by the way, is a name that just sticks for whatever reason. Anyway, dude says Jon’s “the best person to archive this piece of gaming history.” Talk about a compliment!
Jon goes all in. He tears this thing apart on his channel—like, physically unscrews it and everything. Found this paper inside marked “POC2-34 Control 163,” which basically screams, “Hey, I’m prototype number 34!” He also fired it up, played some games. It’s wild to think about how far Valve has come with the Steam Deck since they first thought about making it portable.
The look of this test version is a bit funky. Touchpads are these big circles—not sure if that’s better or not. Joysticks are tinier too, and the palm rests? Different. It says it had an AMD Ryzen 7 3700U, 8GB RAM, a 256GB SSD, and some Intel Wi-Fi chip. Even hinted at having a discrete GPU—though Jon didn’t test that. Maybe next time!
Oh, and Jon did this neat thing: he cloned the original SSD onto another. Because who doesn’t want to keep the original intact, right? He booted it up, and it was running an early SteamOS version. Had three accounts pre-installed, but no luck getting into the main ‘34’ account. And get this—the OS was built way back on September 30, 2020. It’s like a little time capsule from a year and a half before Steam Deck hit the shelves.
Now, I’ve gotta say, the Steam Deck really kicked off something big in the handheld gaming world. Nintendo, bless them, laid down the law with the Switch in 2017, but Steam Deck? That’s a whole new vibe. Suddenly, everyone, from Asus to Lenovo, jumped on the bandwagon. And just like that, boom! Tons of options for playing PC games on the go. Who’d have thought it?
Anyway—oh yeah, make sure to keep up with Tom’s Hardware for the latest scoop. I mean, if you’re into that sort of thing. Hit follow and all that jazz.
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Remember, keep it messy, right?
