I know people have swapped out the classic Macs CRTs for an LCD, but I wonder if anyone has tried it with an e-ink display? I've always thought the same thing regarding the classic pre-MacOS 8 systems on e-ink.
Video of an Onyx BOOX Note displaying video, which I can vouch for from a similar (Max Lumi) device:
<https://yewtu.be/watch?v=XRDJv_-wWBI>
For a relatively static GUI display (such as the Classic Mac), e-ink displays are in fact viable, and there are e-ink devices sold specifically as computer monitors:
<https://shop.boox.com/products/mira>
For a demonstration of the capabilities of various e-ink displays (least capable are first), see: <https://yewtu.be/watch?v=KdrMjnYAap4>
I'd want a B&W, line- or halftone-oriented graphics, and relatively static window placement in general, with paginated rather than scroll-based displays (that is, content updates a full screen at a time rather than scrolling). It's not that scrolling isn't possible, it's just that it's really annoying. And there's a reason e-ink devices tend to use line drawings or etchings as demo / sleep screens (see Diaspora* post below for example).
I've written numerous times on HN about what the benefits and affordances of e-ink are, e.g.:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31396797>
<https://diaspora.glasswings.com/posts/638a8d10e041013afba844...>
In which case, higher display quality (more pixels, sharper boundaries, deeper blacks, whiter whites, and less ghosting) tends to come with slower display response.
When you're reading static text, page-by-page, that's an acceptable trade-off. If you want to scroll, zoom, or pan through content, or are looking at animations or video, you'll want lower definition & sharpness but higher refresh.
And remember that once an image is displayed, it will persist indefinitely without further power to the display.
Knowing this limitation though, I created created a kind of eInk calendar instead - as a love letter to my Mac Plus from the 90's.