[HN Gopher] Turning an old Amazon Kindle into a eInk development...
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Turning an old Amazon Kindle into a eInk development platform
(2021)
Author : fanf2
Score : 63 points
Date : 2025-12-26 12:42 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.lidskialf.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.lidskialf.net)
| Natfan wrote:
| *an eink development platform c:
| solarkraft wrote:
| The kindle system is a joy to dig around in. The UI's based on X,
| awesome WM, GTK and a bunch of mostly unobfuscated shell scripts
| and JS.
|
| One thing I'd love would to find a way to make it wake up every
| once in a while to turn it into an auto-refreshing display. I
| haven't found a way to do so without external hardware (which
| could save a lot of power by not having to wake the whole system,
| but I think the wakeup can't be triggered via the serial port and
| other contacts aren't as easily accessible).
| tetris11 wrote:
| the rtc clock can be told to wakeup at specific times from
| software, and the hardware buttons do usually.wake the device
| too
|
| https://github.com/pascalw/kindle-dash/blob/c83842e7561340e9...
| gnabgib wrote:
| (2021) At the time (373 points, 95 comments)
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26073463
|
| In 2022 (159 points, 24 comments)
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32293238
| Jemm wrote:
| While cool, ultimately not usable due to the very limited
| hardware.
| ktallett wrote:
| Limited hardware is exactly why it is usable. Many e-ink
| devices exist now so limiting factors such as refresh rates
| etc, need to be considered when developing apps for android etc
| nowadays.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| They might be maining that it requires a specific ereader
| model rather than being generic, but I'm not sure that really
| applies either. Kindles, even any specific single model of
| kindle, are generally readily available.
| xx_ns wrote:
| Usable enough to run a Linux DE on it! I did so on my blog:
| https://nns.ee/kindle
| sails wrote:
| I've tried these in the past but always found the
| software/firmware side of it too fiddly for the reward (against
| the grain for a lot of people, I know), which is a pity as the
| hardware side is really rewarding (for me).
|
| Recently, doing it with Claude Code was a breeze. If you are more
| interested in the outcome than the process, then I'd say it's a
| great time to buy a few old Kindles and see what you can create
| with them.
| tetris11 wrote:
| Serial might have been a bit unnecesary here, since there are USB
| hacks you can exploit to achieve the same over at mobileread.
|
| You also might want to turn off some background scripts in
| /etc/init.rc/ such as the screensaver, unload the audio/mic, stop
| the window manager if you're not using it, and stop the
| webreader.
|
| https://github.com/pascalw/kindle-dash/blob/main/src/dash.sh
| mfalcon wrote:
| Would be nice to use as an interface to interact with Claude
| Code.
| knlb wrote:
| I've never really had the patience to fiddle a lot of with the
| hardware but have always wanted to use e-ink screens for working,
| specially on the move. (Tried the hacks for remarkable pro with a
| friend's recommendations, ultimately never kept using it).
|
| The boox palma with android + (obsidian | termux + tailscale)
| when I need it has actually worked out well for me for writing |
| programming with a portable keyboard (nuphy). I even did this
| year's Advent of Code on it. (https://knlb.dev/logs/aoc25 has
| some photos)
| fortran77 wrote:
| I broke my old kindle when trying to open it. His nice
| description on how to get inside would have been a big help...
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(page generated 2025-12-30 23:01 UTC)