This just came in the mail:
So far I have been using both a regular raspberry pi with CNCjs and a Win10 laptop with CM, but the laptop finally died (for good, CPR did not help…) and I thought, since CM now runs on the Pi and I don’t want to spend $500 for a decent laptop and I need a compact keyboard anyway, this should be interesting.
Just being curious, does anyone else use a Pi 400 for controlling their Shapeoko/Nomad and how do you like it ?
Looks interesting. Let us know how this turns out. 
well it’s almost too easy. The Pi400 comes preloaded with the Raspbian OS, so I literally only had to:
The keyboard is compact and the reactivity of a Pi is not that of a $1000 laptop, but for running CM it’s perfect so far.
Up next, installing CNCjs (which I already know will work perfectly, having installed it on other Pis before).
Will watch your progress with interest, as too considering a Pi/4 or /400 with CNCjs as the sender setup in my new workshop, when builders and building materials in the UK become available again… 
I’ve got one sitting on my desk that I’ve been meaning to try. It could be the lowest-cost option for a CM computer.
A Pi with CM is definitely in my future as I don’t like taking my good laptop in the workshop. How’s the feel of the mouse/keyboard combo and does it seem robust enough to take a few hits in the shop? I do like the size of it, really compact.
they feel average (not in a bad way, but obviously don’t expect a high end keyboard/mouse experience on a sub $100 item that packs the computer too), but I enjoy using them so far. And should it break from workshop abuse in a year or two, I would buy a new one without thinking twice.
Are the keyboard & mouse standard connections?
Meaning, can you just buy a regular USB keyboard (maybe a nice Cherry) when you get tired with / fill up with sawdust & metal chips the Pi keyboard?
@Julien I’d be curious about the performance while using cncjs. While a great sender, Cncjs tends to be very temperamental. Sometimes it needs restarting few times a day. It works really well for me on the MS Surface pro 3, but on the super cheap Lenovo, it’s really bad. How is it on the pi?
I set up a watchdog on the pi, to restart it when it freezes up (only seems to happen when I’m not using it). Seems to have cleared up the issues, granted I currently use a 3b+ so it may have been the limited resources. I haven’t seen any issues since when using CNCJS or when tweaking it to add in keyboard macro shortcuts / shopfloortablet UI.
I have CNCJS running 24/7 on this Pi and have not seen any issues. It immediately connects right up to the machine every time. I love the ease of use of the Pi!
keyboard is embedded (well that’s the point of the Pi400 isn’t it 
), the mouse is USB, and there is no reason why you could not plug an external USB keyboard (but haven’t tried it)
I have been using it on a (regular) Pi4 from time to time (a few tens of hours overall, not more) with very few issues but I have mainly used CNCjs on Windows so far, so I’ll report how it goes now that I have transitioned to 100% Pi. Time will tell.
FYI, I have been using CNJS for over 18 months on a Pi 3b+. It has been rock solid. Furthermore it runs 24/7. The Pi has only been off maybe 5 times in 18 months - only due to brief power outages and once when I moved it.
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