PaperTTY – Python module to render a TTY on e-ink | Hacker News Reader

PaperTTY – Python module to render a TTY on e-ink

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234 pointsmesse69 comments

Is anyone aware of a netbook-form device with an e-ink display? I've always felt that'd be my ideal device for writing on-the-go; especially if it'd run vi, nvi or vim.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/30/17788476/lenovo-yoga-book...

That's not at all what they are asking for. The e-ink 'display' is the keyboard, not the display for term/graphics.

Also:

> Memory: 4GB RAM

Why do laptop manufacturers insist on being stuck in 2005?

>Why do laptop manufacturers insist on being stuck in 2005?

why does running apps these days require 16GB because developers insist on using as much RAM as possible

Abstraction

Because RAM is cheap, and human developer/testing time is expensive.

RAM is only cheap if your consumer can actually run your product. As manufacturer's have decided 4GB is good enough for most people... Maybe the developer is the problem.

> As manufacturer's have decided 4GB is good enough for most people

"640K of memory should be enough for anybody."

"RAMs cheap, everyone should have more than enough."

Platitudes are cheap. Ignoring the real world, and allowing cheap excuses for either developers or manufacturers isn't acceptable.

With 640K, a lot of developers built decent software. They didn't decide that the manufacturer was wrong and so their software would simply be a resource hog, as that was easier for their developers. But they also asked for more too.

With 640K of memory, developers were building basic productivity tools with simple CLI interfaces and little or no extensibility.

Sid Meier's Civilization ran in 640k. No extended memory.

RetroCityRampage[0] is a modern game with a DOS port that uses no more than 640k of RAM [1].

That's a lot more than a simple CLI interface.

[0] https://vblank.com/RetroCityRampage/

[1] https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/248019/How_5_years_of_bu...

Which developers ?

2K seems to have been enough for the Apollo mission to go to the moon and back https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer#Memor...

Yea, good luck running Windows 10 on that (since that's what it supposedly ships with).

I'm typing this on the original Lenovo Yoga Book with 4GB of RAM and it works.

On bootup Win 10 occupies about 2GB of RAM. I'm using Firefox Nightly to view this HN comment and it occupies 500-600 MB of memory, leaving a bit still free.

Yes, 4GB is probably ridiculous for a real laptop. But viewed as a tablet, it (the original Yoga Book) is workable.

Of course, I would love the new Yoga Book to have more memory. Hopefully, Lenovo gets the memo and tries to add more, although that would push the price up.

I run on 4GB and it's good enough for : browsing, python development of GUI, looking at picture, listening to music, serving music, word processing, making patches to KDE, running a virtual machine, etc. Oh and it's 2018.

I'm not arguing that 4GB is not enough for running a Linux distro (I'm sitting at ~800MB of RAM usage on i3 with qutebrowser, cmus, vim, and more!). But 4GB is not enough to do anything beyond that, especially for developers. It's also almost certainly not enough to do much of anything on the OS it actually ships with (windows 10).

Because the price of RAM went up by over 250% since late 2016.

Holy carp.

The link from the user below you, which I am reposting, as his link is [dead] is quite amazing... Lenovo's Yoga Book... I want this device:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/30/17788476/lenovo-yoga-book...

Definitely looks cool. I went and vouched for his comment since I suspect it was hit by anti-spam filters (just being a link).

Afaik you can't use the e-ink as a normal display though, bummer

I wonder what this machine will do if you install other OS' onto it though

Probably not much, unless someone reverse engineers the drivers.

yet

A keyboard you can't touch type on? And they are showing the home-row notches on the J and F keys on the display like that makes a difference?

I think I'll pass.

If its an e-ink haptic keyboard, I wonder if its not configurable to whatever degree -- or will it only run one US-Centric keyboard version? I would like to be able to configure the thing in any way... given that you can write on it with a pen, that implies that its 100% touch-surface, so I don't see how you cant just assign whatever touch interface you want to it...

I was one of the people who bought a Remarkable E-Ink device when they first came out. Its great for writing, notetaking and reading PDF documents, eBooks etc. Though its pretty dam expensive, battery life is not great (barely would last a day of simple reading in my experience) and the need to use a pretty muvh rudimentary app to synv stuff (rather than native drive, Dropbox, Google Drive etc) is a big let down.

This Yoga e-Ink option thus looks like a great prospect.

buy a dasung paperlike pro 3[1] e-ink monitor and place it infront of your laptop screen. Retina display on __E-INK__. slim like a book, just carry it wherever you take your laptop. can double as dual monitor.

[1]https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/paperlike-3-a-smart-e-ink...

It looks like this guy was one of the first to get one of the new ones. Here's a typing test video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvyS047RYqU

Wow that is impressively fast. Wish it was a bit cheaper than $900 though.

The problem with Dasung is that they force you to use a driver, which is a bit buggy and not available for all platforms. But I reckon their hardware is super nice.

Boox Android tablets can take input through standard HDMI, without any software.

Another option is an AMOLED screen, and invert colors to have the majority of the screen switched off. Sadly portable JOLED screens from Asus are not coming out yet, despite being announced for Q2.

That one uses HDMI and there's a comment saying they didn't need to install any drivers.

That's great. Can you link the comment please?

There are several reports saying that if you "just" use HDMI and not their special drivers, the display will periodically stop, freeze, and display a message steering you towards the drivers.

Only the first generation needed the special driver, because it connected via USB. The second generation (and newer) use standard HDMI and work fine without drivers. (I tried both since I managed to crack the panel on the first one while travelling.)

If you are looking into that product, you should at least check out the Boox Onyx 10/13 inch e-readers, which are just superior both in terms of price and features. (They too support being used a regular HDMI screen (with no drivers needed, unlike dasung device) - but you also get a fully-fledged android-based e-reader in that same product.

Take it with a grain of salt since it's from Dasung themselves, but they have a demo video showing the relative responsiveness between their display and the Onyx e-readers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdr6GD6enQc

There was one announced last year but it appears to be vaporware. The Boox Typewriter.

Probably the closest you're going to find is an e-ink Android tablet paired with a keyboard folio case.

Pixel Qi is not really e-ink but sort of similar. You can still find the screens on eBay and transplant one into an old netbook.

> Pixel Qi is not really e-ink but sort of similar. You can still find the screens on eBay and transplant one into an old netbook.

I'll look into it, thanks.

There is this thing

https://getfreewrite.com/

No terminal support out of the box, at least not that I can find

There is also Onyx Boox 10.3 with some pretty good reviews: https://twitter.com/milessabin/status/1035499322882883584

It runs Android. So running Termux app with a BT keyboard should be pretty good.

Termux is great, and it's also available through the F-Droid appstore.

Not only does it run Android, it has built-in HDMI mode, where you can just connect it to any HDMI port as a second screen. It will act as any regular screen (except it's e-ink of course). This way you don't even need a Termux or bluetooth, or whatever, instead depending on your setup you might just connect it to your PC and run any software you want as on any regular screen. (The screen refresh will be somewhat laggy of course, but they really did a great job in this one, and many regular apps are truly usable.)

No HDMI on this model, the larger 13 inch does have it though.

Neat.

I love the reflective mode in the XO-1. I've always been very sad it hadn't become more common.

What I would give for a MacBook (or the equivalent) with an e-ink screen. Not some cheap Android semi-computer-tablet, but a full on laptop. No dual screen gimmicks, just a laptop that can be used outside (readable) with the improved battery life from what would be such an awesome screen.

My understanding as to why this may never exist is because there's not much of a market and the refresh rate is too slow. But I can dream.

Doesn't e-ink have horrible lag?

This looks really nice. I have been working on something that might perhaps be of interest to you.

https://github.com/canselcik/libremarkable

I would love it if someone built a terminal emulator using it. All the pieces needed to achieve that is already in place.

I'm a huge fan of libremarkable ! Thanks for making my remarkable more hackeable !

Always happy to hear stuff like that. Thank you for saying that. :)

I would love to have something like this in front of every meeting room at work displaying the occupancy of the current day.

https://www.visionect.com/blog/digital-signage-how-we-built-...

Google also did something like this but I can't find that write up.

You seem to know the market a bit.

Can I buy an e-ink device that I can hang on the wall or put on the table and that will display today's appointments from my calendar for me?

You can do this with a rooted Kindle: https://lifehacker.com/add-weather-and-google-calendar-infor...

But this doesn't automatically update itself, no?

Found it, the Google project was called Radish there was a write-up about it in 2008

https://developers.google.com/gdata/articles/radish

We do this with old kindle fires. Works OK

Aren't all of those non-e-ink?

Crestron has a lineup that does this. You can make on the spot reservations without having to meddle with Outlook.

https://www.crestron.com/en-US/Products/Control-Surfaces/Tou...

Visionect is a company that will sell you exactly such a system: https://getjoan.com/products/

There are many many products that do this. They're all crazy expensive though and they generally use LCD tablets.

The ones we've had at the last two companies I've worked at were battery powered and lasted for a day - somebody has to go around and swap them over once per day.

I agree an e-ink solution would be much better but then these companies would have to do their own hardware since nobody sells e-ink tablets with a proper OS and they're way too niche to do that.

Onyx Boox series run Android (some old, some new), and go up to 13” in size.

Herman Roebbers talked about this [1] at a conference earlier this year, together with the fact that the displays and what drives them have to be interconnected and low power.

[1] https://ulpc.nl/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Herman-Roebbers.p...

Demo-ing with nethack gets my +1, regardless. Anyway, I love e-ink. Love it.

I realise it isn't exactly the same thing, but it feels like we've finally come full circle :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleprinter

I think this is a great idea! Small (3x6”) e-ink displays are now widely available on alibaba and eBay. I’m very weary about the refresh rate. The ones I see available now look like 6s total refresh by the looks of them.

weary == leery?

Fixing the world, one typo at a time.

I'm assuming "wary"

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