One of my favorite things about Gibson is how impressionistic he is, especially for scifi, which leads to people having a lot of different mental images as they

One of my favorite things about Gibson is how impressionistic he is, especially for scifi, which leads to people having a lot of different mental images as they go through the books. :) Per closest reading of the source, it seems like a complete Matrix set would be {computer} + {deck/sensory translator} + {neural interface hardware, e.g. trodes or jack}. Believe it's also implied decks can run the Matrix standalone, without a computer, but likely have limited processing capacity. My physical manifestation of the deck was definitely very 90s crap plastic, but hinting that there were powerful and expensive electronics concealed within. There's also some textual stuff about them essentially being epoxy-filled / security-sealed to prevent tampering or reverse engineering.