What Kestrel-7 actually is
Kestrel-7 is a single HTML file that boots into a fully-realised starship bridge console — no install, no server, no dependencies. Everything you see and hear is generated on the spot: the CRT glow, the alert klaxon, the low reactor hum, the scrolling readouts across nine separate ship systems, right down to Navigation, Life Support, and a Transporter console.
It runs the same standalone file whether you're online or a thousand light-years from a Wi-Fi signal. Every font is embedded, every sound is synthesised in the browser with the Web Audio API. Nothing is streamed, nothing downloaded after first load, nothing phones home.
The console can be reskinned into six distinct hardware eras — from a riveted, genuinely-monochrome 1950s kinescope to glossy 2000s Y2K glass — and each one is a real hardware rebuild: different fonts, different chrome, different ambient texture, not just a colour swap.
It's built and tuned for 1920×1080 widescreen displays, but will scale down and look good at other resolutions, including 4:3 aspect ratios.
- Classic bridge-console sci-fiAlert states, glowing readouts, a console treated as a character in its own right
- Cold-war computer terminalsText-driven, faintly ominous machines that talk back in short, flat lines
- Dial-up era phosphorThe particular glow and hum of a screen from before graphics got smooth
Not an app you open — a screen you live with
Kestrel-7 isn't built to get a task done. It's built to be left running.
COSPLAY & PROP BUILDERS
A ready-made bridge display for costumes, conventions, and photo sets — no rig or projector build required.
STREAMERS & CONTENT CREATORS
A living, animated backdrop for desk setups, YouTube sets, and streams — full-screen and forget it.
RETRO HARDWARE ENTHUSIASTS
Built for people who care about the specific texture of analog cockpits and CRT computing across six decades.
AMBIENT DISPLAY FANS
Something to glance at, not interact with — a desk toy that just happens to run in a browser tab.
One console. Six hardware eras.
Real default colours and real typefaces, pulled straight from the console's own stylesheet. Select an era to preview it — the bridge interface further down the page follows along.
Built like real ship hardware, not a webpage
Nine module screens, a full keyboard command set, and a setup bay to configure the bridge — all running on one file with nothing loaded from anywhere else.
SIX HARDWARE ERAS
1950s riveted kinescope through 2000s Y2K chrome, each with its own fonts, chrome, and CRT behaviour.
NINE SHIP SYSTEMS
Navigation, Life Support, Tactical, Engineering, Communications, Transporter, Astrometrics, Docking & Cargo, Core Diagnostics.
SYNTHESISED AUDIO
Every klaxon, hum, and blip generated live with the Web Audio API — theremin swells on the 50s console, mainframe clatter on others.
ERA-AUTHENTIC HARDWARE
Riveted bezels, blinking lamp banks, a colour-block elbow frame, glossy glass panels — each era is a rebuild, not a reskin.
FULL KEYBOARD COMMAND
Arrow-key navigation, Enter to select, F for fullscreen, S for setup, R to randomise.
RANDOMISE PROTOCOL
One key rerolls era, alert level, and ambience together — a new bridge in a single press.
ZERO DEPENDENCIES
One HTML file, fonts embedded as data, nothing fetched from anywhere. Fully offline by design.
CONFIGURABLE BRIDGE
Five-tab setup bay — Config, Audio & Visual, Controls, Help, EULA — tunes alert states, ambience, and the stardate clock.
Straight off the bridge
Real captures from the running console — title screen, setup bay, and five ship systems. Step through them or let it cycle on its own.
Try it yourself, right here
A free, 1980s-only teaser build of Kestrel-7 — running live in this page, not a screenshot. The full version unlocks five more hardware eras and the rest of the system status states.
Open the free edition in its own tab →
How do I get it?
Kestrel-7 is live — £5, or pay more if you want.
Kestrel-7 is out now, released on Buy Me a Coffee for £5.
It's still a personal project and still being actively developed, so expect updates over time rather than a finished, closed product.
If you have any suggestions, feedback, or want to request additional content, please get in touch.