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Comment by mtlynch | Hacker News Reader

>I designed a backend API that collected the data in real-time data and exported it as a PNG image.

Does anyone know why in these Kindle modding dashboards, they always generate the dashbard image on an external server? Why isn't it possible to build all that functionality into an executable on the Kindle itself? You've got a Linux environment, so why can't you run all the logic locally?

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I built this dashboard. The price curves and text are rendered locally from the microcontroller and painted pixel by pixel. Letters use raster fonts stored locally, price curves are generated on the fly. It can be done, it takes a bit of care. Mine only has ~400KB memory. It must be a lot easier on the Kindle, I think it runs Java even.

https://www.asciimx.com/projects/etlas/

Thanks for sharing your project, it is very cool! I'll check it out and see if I can get it to work.

Kindle is very hackable if you're ready to endure some weird quirks. E.g. You can install Python on kindle or do custom software using various tools like Gcc, clang, Perl etc.

1: https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Python_on_Kindle

2: https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kindle_Hacks_Information#Ki...

Sure, if you run into issues, feel free to drop me an email. My address is on the home page.

Thanks for sharing the resources! Great to connect with fellow e-paper enthusiasts :)

...and if you're not ready for enduring weird quirks, just launch stuff out of Debian chroot within Xephyr. I've used Pidgin this way many years ago.

It is definitely possible to draw the images on the Kindle client, e.g. KoReader does that. I've mentioned 2 different ways in the article FBInk and Kindlet. I found it a bit cumbersome to use these tools and the tooling is bit iffy. It was easier for me to just download it from the server.

[1]: https://github.com/NiLuJe/FBInk

[2]: https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kindlet_Index

I'm just curious about the best way to generate a dashboard image locally without invoking a web browser -- I'm quite terrible at web programming and would be much more comfortable with ImageMagick or even troff.

Most people today do not know how to program in the confines of 256MB of RAM and are not aware that languages other than javascript exist.

I expected the Kindle to do a few api calls and call ImageMagick but instead, in Cloudflare, it sets up a headless browser, and renders a web page to a PNG file on the server, and then only the final png image gets returned to the Kindle.

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