[HN Gopher] Using your Kindle as an e-ink monitor
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Using your Kindle as an e-ink monitor
Author : thunderbong
Score : 126 points
Date : 2024-08-04 17:49 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gist.github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (gist.github.com)
| denysvitali wrote:
| What's unclear here is the refresh rate, but knowing the
| Kindle(s) this is hardly faster than 0.5fps
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| It looks like it has the ability to do partial refresh
| adtac wrote:
| updated the gist: I'm getting close to 3-4 frames per second!
| this is only possible because of the partial screen refreshes
| since most pixels don't change between consecutive frames
| denysvitali wrote:
| Oh wow. That's nice! Yes, if it does partial refreshes then
| the refresh rate might be way faster than I expected.
|
| Awesome!
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| For me, that would be fine. It's common to have some reference
| or other piece of information that I want handy but doesn't
| change much.
| retrac wrote:
| Here's my old Kindle Touch 2 running a hacky Android 4 port
| attempt and a Game Boy emulator:
| https://i.imgur.com/m7ZZ1Xm.mp4 I'd say more like 2 - 3 fps.
| Not sure why there are random black lines. Display driver
| doesn't handle the demand of constant update very well. I
| normally use it as an e-ink picture frame.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Independent of the methods indicated here (screen capture +
| imagemagick conversion), there's the underlying question of
| E-innk hardware capabilities. I can speak to the latter.
|
| E-Ink screens are usually capable of a number of different
| refresh / display modes, which trade higher-quality visual
| appearance (crispness, greyscale, ghosting) for slower refresh.
|
| Refresh rates typically range from ~2-4 Hz at highest quality
| to 16--60 Hz at lower quality, but faster-updating modes. For
| most E-ink devices I've seen there are typically four modes,
| "Normal/Regal" (highest quality), "Speed", "A2", and "X-Mode"
| (fastest refresh).
|
| "Normal" is best for reading static text. "Speed" is sufficient
| for terminal-based sessions (I have Termux installed on my Onyx
| BOOX tablet), and most interactive apps (e.g., Web browsers,
| Podcast apps). I find little practical distinction between
| "Speed" and "A2". X-Mode does show considerale ghosting, but is
| indeed capable of video playback.
|
| Typically it's also possible to set the full-refresh interval
| (now many repaints are premitted between full refreshes which
| clear ghosting but give a distinct "flash" update.
|
| E-ink has a number of compromises, but _is_ quite usable. Apps
| which are designed with its capabilities and limitations in
| mind are much better suited. Mostly that involves full-screen
| pagination of content rather than scrolling. Given the
| ubiquitous use of touch-based scrolling in most Mobile
| applications, this can be somewhat frustrating. I tend to use
| dedicated e-ink apps (such as Onyx 's own NeoReader book
| reader), apps tuned for E-ink such as Einkbro, a Web browser,
| or terminal-based apps which work well in a text-based context.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Posted on GitHub:
|
| "unfortunately I lost the Go source code"
| SillyUsername wrote:
| Followed up with "but it was pretty simple, like under 30
| lines"
|
| So simple in fact, that it wasn't quickly rewritten and added
| to GitHub...
| adtac wrote:
| I should stop writing code in files like /tmp/x.go no matter
| how throwaway I think the code might be. I still have the
| linux/armv7 binary if anyone wants it lol.
| stavros wrote:
| Oh man, apparently I'm not alone in using /tmp/ as my
| storage space. I like it because it's self-cleaning!
| medstrom wrote:
| You could have /home/junk2020, /home/junk2021,
| /home/junk2022 etc. Still self-cleaning, but it's once a
| year.
| gala8y wrote:
| This resonates funnily with "I hacked this together last
| night for fun" a bit down the page.
| theonemind wrote:
| "It is impossible to separate a cube into two cubes, or a
| fourth power into two fourth powers, or in general, any power
| higher than the second, into two like powers. I have
| discovered a marvelous proof of this, which this margin is
| too narrow to contain" - Pierre De Fermat
| bmsleight_ wrote:
| I did a similar project HDMI in
|
| https://hackaday.com/2021/01/08/old-kindle-shows-hdmi-video-...
|
| to make an OK Monitor - https://barwap.com/projects/okmonitor/
| hiatus wrote:
| Is this a dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41154410?
| froh wrote:
| it is, indeed
| lopkeny12ko wrote:
| This article completely glosses over what is presumably the first
| step of making this work, which is getting a shell on the Kindle.
| The only resource is some random forum bulletin board post? Huh?
| medstrom wrote:
| What do you mean "random"? Does the post lack some info or why
| is it not good enough?
| rbanffy wrote:
| Posts in forums don't age well, change URLs, become outdated,
| and so on. If you want a durable thing, you should add that
| to the project description.
| medstrom wrote:
| I don't think phpBB threads ever change URL these days.
| It's only unreliable if the forum is managed by a video
| game company, because they delete the whole forum every now
| and then to renew their website. But MobileRead is well-
| known and enduring.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| I suspect it's less that the _forum_ will change URLs as
| that the URLs listed within some arbitrary forum post
| will become outdated as the referenced source moves or is
| deleted.
|
| Linkrot, in other words.
|
| Documentation in Wiki-based formats is more resilient
| against this as posts can be subsequently edited.
| lopkeny12ko wrote:
| Why is the source-of-truth record for a set of complex
| technical instructions in a bulletin board board of all
| places? Instead of, you know, checked in as code in a
| version-controlled repository, like basically all other
| software?
| grogenaut wrote:
| Be the change you want to see in the world. In the time you
| spent complaining about it here you could have made such a
| resource. Don't ask the Internet in general to do it for
| you.
| lopkeny12ko wrote:
| No, I could not have, because I don't own a Kindle nor do
| I have any way of exercising the instructions. I'm just
| calling out that this is an asinine delivery format.
| adtac wrote:
| Jailbreaks are highly firmware and hardware specific. I've only
| seen one specific combination (5.13.5, PW3), but the
| LanguageBreak authors have seen hundreds -- including mine --
| so I have no additional insight or instructions that the
| extremely thorough LanguageBreak thread doesn't have.
|
| > random forum bulletin board post
|
| As opposed to a random gist? :)
| piombisallow wrote:
| The easy way to do this is a Boox reader with the Superdisplay
| app.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Incidentally, in the past few days I have been testing Android +
| Kaleido3 as a general purpose device, and Termux-X11.
|
| Kaleido3 is very usable; the recent waveforms and correct
| dithering algorithms allow video consumption with limited
| compromise (the framerate is high). And yes, coding is very
| doable (Termux provided the compilers/interpreters).
|
| Termux-X11 adds the ability to have your desktop Linux natively
| on the Android device (so you may not need to use E-Ink displays
| as part of monitor devices, but already directly as embedded in a
| tablet used as active computer).
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| Best RickRoll ever!
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Dupe of <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41154410> which
| edged this out by a few minutes.
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(page generated 2024-08-04 23:00 UTC)