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To be clear, the XO's display was not e-ink. It was regular frontlit LCD with a fast refresh rate. The downside was that the backlit mode never looked very go

by krupan 9y ago

To be clear, the XO's display was not e-ink. It was regular frontlit LCD with a fast refresh rate. The downside was that the backlit mode never looked very good indoors. If someone could fix that problem I bet we'd have that screen on every portable device.

bronson 9y ago
No, it really didn't. And reflective outdoors looked even worse. In the shade, it was washed out and the colors were wrong. In the sun, it looked like a bizarre black-and-white rendition of something where, if you concentrated, you could guess what it was trying to display. With a lot more development time maybe they could have fixed the problems. Maybe.
- burfog 9y ago
  Did you switch modes? There was a mode switch. In grayscale mode, you got 1200x900 resolution. That was about 200 dpi, so quite sharp for the day. (typical was more like 85 dpi back then) In color mode, the screen was blurred. It was a 3x3 blur, without the typical pixel/subpixel distinction. Effective resolution was something like 692x519 based on the number of green pixels. Color mode in the sunlight would look grey, but it was still blurry. You had to switch modes if you wanted the full 1200x900.
  - bitwize 9y ago
    There was not a mode switch, at least not on my OLPC. You switched from color to B&W by turning the backlight brightness all the way down (thus shutting off the backlight).
    - burfog 9y ago
      That was a mode switch. Turning backlight brightness all the way down was the mode switch as presented in the UI. Very old versions of the UI made it explicit. At the MMIO level of course, there was a bit that got toggled.
Kluny 9y ago
Yeah, I would gladly take an e-ink display or a frontlit lcd. Either one would be great. The closest I've found to what I'm after is the Freewrite typewriter, which is stupid expensive.
ZenoArrow 9y ago
> "It was regular frontlit LCD with a fast refresh rate." Are you suggesting the only difference is in the controller board? From what little I know about them the Pixel Qi screens use the same manufacturing techniques as standard LCD screens, but I'd still be inclined to believe that the screens are different from standard LCD screens.

by krupan 9y ago

bronson 9y ago

No, it really didn't. And reflective outdoors looked even worse. In the shade, it was washed out and the colors were wrong. In the sun, it looked like a bizarre black-and-white rendition of something where, if you concentrated, you could guess what it was trying to display. With a lot more development time maybe they could have fixed the problems. Maybe.

burfog 9y ago
Did you switch modes? There was a mode switch. In grayscale mode, you got 1200x900 resolution. That was about 200 dpi, so quite sharp for the day. (typical was more like 85 dpi back then) In color mode, the screen was blurred. It was a 3x3 blur, without the typical pixel/subpixel distinction. Effective resolution was something like 692x519 based on the number of green pixels. Color mode in the sunlight would look grey, but it was still blurry. You had to switch modes if you wanted the full 1200x900.
- bitwize 9y ago
  There was not a mode switch, at least not on my OLPC. You switched from color to B&W by turning the backlight brightness all the way down (thus shutting off the backlight).
  - burfog 9y ago
    That was a mode switch. Turning backlight brightness all the way down was the mode switch as presented in the UI. Very old versions of the UI made it explicit. At the MMIO level of course, there was a bit that got toggled.

Kluny 9y ago

Yeah, I would gladly take an e-ink display or a frontlit lcd. Either one would be great. The closest I've found to what I'm after is the Freewrite typewriter, which is stupid expensive.

ZenoArrow 9y ago

> "It was regular frontlit LCD with a fast refresh rate." Are you suggesting the only difference is in the controller board? From what little I know about them the Pixel Qi screens use the same manufacturing techniques as standard LCD screens, but I'd still be inclined to believe that the screens are different from standard LCD screens.