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I'm dreaming of general availability of touch enabled e-paper/e-ink displays. Not just for the Raspberry Pi, but especially with it I would be one step closer t
by omnibrain 11y ago
I'm dreaming of general availability of touch enabled e-paper/e-ink displays.
Not just for the Raspberry Pi, but especially with it I would be one step closer to my always-on home dashboard.
- hartror 11y agoMe too, I idly look up prices now and again and have considered retiring my kindle touch.
- CodingGuy 11y agoThat would be great!
- robgibbons 11y agoI would personally pay a lot for an e-paper based laptop specifically for text editing. For writers, or programmers, I don't think you can beat e-paper. No eye-strain, outstanding battery life, perfect visibility in direct sunlight...
- niutech 11y agoGrab a Kindle and use it as a notepad [1] or as an external screen [2]. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Notepad/dp/B004LSLN0I http://www.amazon.com/Notepad/dp/B004LSLN0I [2] http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150434 http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150434
- masklinn 11y agoPixel Qi tried and failed, though you can still buy 3Qi panels (IIRC 7" or 10") from tripuso (who bought the rights when Pixel Qi folded) and swap the display of a corresponding-size notebook.
- creshal 11y agoeInk Carta panels apparently exist in sizes of up to 13.3". I wonder whether it's possible to get them with standard LVDS/eDP connectors to plug into off-the-shelf laptops…
- smackfu 11y agoPoor response time is the main negative.
- robgibbons 11y agoThat's why I think a system aimed solely at text editing would be perfect, basically like a Kindle but in the form factor of a full-size laptop. I'm imagining literally just a CLI or rudimentary text editor with an e-paper interface... no video or images, just text. Very spartan. Response time is more than good enough for something like that.
- vilhelm_s 11y agoWouldn't it take 250ms between typing a character and it showing up on the screen? That seems kindof annoying. I could also imagine that searching through a textfile to find the place you want to edit would be pretty frustrating if you had to do it at Kindle speed.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- david-given 11y agoNot necessarily. On the Kindle it takes about that long because it uses greyscale mode, which is slow, and also flashes the screen first to reduce ghosting, which doubles the time. In 1-bit mono mode you can flip a pixel in ~100ms, which is plenty fast enough for text entry, although scrolling might not be good. Early LCDs had terrible ghosting (anyone remember trying to play Doom on an early mono LCD and the image instantly turning into incomprehensible hash?), but I can't find any references for actual numbers for the pixel flip time. I'd be interested to know how they compare to eink. Does anyone know?
- simcop2387 11y agoNo idea about the actual numbers, but people have gotten ps1 games working on e-ink displays. I'd think that'd indicate it's probably perfectly doable for text editing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fbD753xE-U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fbD753xE-U
- hauget 11y agoLikewise. I'd also LOVE something like a cheaper/smaller version of Sony's Digital Paper to replace my notepads/sketchbooks. SIDE NOTE: I keep a Thinkpad x220 with a retrofitted IPS display and a 9cell battery for dedicated writing/programming. It's got fantastic viewing angles, an amazing keyboard and 10hrs+ battery life! You can find great deals for a used x220/x230 (and its IPS display) on ebay. Worth every penny!
- veritas3241 11y agoI've always wanted something like this as well. I saw an article a while ago where a guy had a Heroku app (i believe) and pointed his kindle browser to the app and was using it as a word processor. Latency wasn't too bad either.
- david-given 11y agoI'm actually thinking of buying a cheap hackable ereader with USB OTG support and putting Debian on it, precisely for this purpose. (It looks like the Nook is probably my best bet, but it unfortunately doesn't have a powered USB port so I'd need to find an external power supply of some description for the keyboard. Any other suggestions gratefully appreciated.)
- j_s 11y agoI'm trying to figure out how to turn my MailStation (320x128 monochrome LCD + keyboard for dial-up email) into a typewriter, but I don't know the easiest way to get the text out of the machine. https://www.google.com/search?q=earthlink+mailstation&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=earthlink+mailstation&tbm=is...
- pkamb 11y agoThe AlphaSmart seems to have similar hardware to your MailStation, and has a bit of a cult following as a device for writers. Plus easy text export. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaSmart https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaSmart
- mattkevan 11y agoI really like writing on my eMate 300. Distraction free (as it does little else) great keyboard, all-day batteries and the word processor is surprisingly fully-featured. Also guaranteed to cause comment as practically no-one has seen one before.
- smellf 11y agoYou may want to try something like what this guy has done: http://biosrhythm.com/?p=910 http://biosrhythm.com/?p=910 The key piece of hardware is the Keyrah: http://www.vesalia.de/e_keyrahv2.htm http://www.vesalia.de/e_keyrahv2.htm
- lfam 11y agoThere is something like that available: http://www.solcomputer.com/sunlight-readable-netbook.html http://www.solcomputer.com/sunlight-readable-netbook.html The specs are modest, but I bet it can handle your one requirement: "text editing".
- j_s 11y agoI believe a $60 used OLPC has the same screen tech, but the keyboard is squishy. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Display#Screen http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Display#Screen
- superuser2 11y agoPretty frustrating lag in typed characters showing up, though.
- Nilef 11y agoSounds interesting what would you use it for practically?
- potatolicious 11y agoAlways-on displays that need to blend into their environments, like a smart thermostat, and where power consumption is a concern. Even in non-power-constrained environments e-paper can be preferable - the glow of a typical LCD display is really distracting and doesn't fit in a lot of (most) environments. Have enough gadgets around with LED displays and indicators and your home suddenly seems like a really bad 80s movie.
- icebraining 11y agoWhat's the point of always-on, though? If you're reading the thermostat, isn't it usually to adjust it? Seems like wake-on-touch would be enough.
- moron4hire 11y agoyou can't read the temperature on a wake-on-touch thermostat from across the room.
- jharger 11y agoFair point. Though, it's not so easy to read the temperature across the room on these bad boys either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermostat#/media/File:Honeywell_round_thermostat.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermostat#/media/File:Honeywe...
- moron4hire 11y agoI'm more thinking about something like this: http://www.wattselectronics.com/60-thermostats-wfht-lcd-rf.html?lang=2 http://www.wattselectronics.com/60-thermostats-wfht-lcd-rf.h... I think those are much more common in new installations. These are segmented LCD displays. An eInk display would not require an explicit segmentation layout, so new layouts could be programmed on the fly, prototyped very quickly, etc. And might even be a little easier to read, even during daylight hours I find these types of LCD displays difficult to read, especially from off-angles.
- borgel 11y agoThe Freewrite [1] is exactly what you want, though geared towards writers. Eink display, mechanical keyboard, metal chassis, WiFi, etc. It would be ideal if they provided a shell, but I haven't heard them making any of those noises. [1] https://astrohaus.com/ https://astrohaus.com/
- digi_owl 11y agoWhenever i see that i find myself thinking about something like the TRS-80 Model 100. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Model_100 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Model_100 I really do wonder how much the eink saves vs going for a monochrome screen that early laptops used, and just do ones writing in a *nix shell.
- mattkevan 11y agoReally like the idea, but the case design is... odd. For some reason the shiny, curved black plastic reminds me of a weird cross between Darth Vader and something a character in a Terry Gilliam film would use. Stick a Fresnel lens over the screen and you're all set.
- provemewrong 11y agoOh, I thought it was a new player, some competition, but it looks like it's just the Hemmingwrite renamed.
- david-given 11y agoI see the PaperLike is finally shipping. Here's a review: http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/07/10/one-week-with-dasungs-13-3-e-ink-usb-monitor-video/ http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/07/10/one-week-with-dasun... It's a 13 inch eink monitor. Refresh rate is apparently reasonable. The price is ludicrous, unfortunately, because I want.
- userbinator 11y agoSo the hardware is OK but it requires a driver which also happens to be rather buggy? They should've just made it plug into VGA/DVI/HDMI like a regular monitor, no software required.
- david-given 11y agoEink doesn't work like that - you have to explicitly tell the display which areas you want to refresh, and more importantly, how... Emulating HDMI would be a tonne of work and also it wouldn't work very well.
- userbinator 11y agoThat could be done in hardware. They could put a double framebuffer in it, one that contains the frames of the input signal and another with what's currently displayed, repeatedly diff'ing them to send the right signals to the display. The video linked in this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10187876 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10187876 shows a Nook's display being used for video, so I think it's quite possible.