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Show HN: A VNC viewer for eInk devices capable of 30 FPS when writing text

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Re: Show HN: A VNC viewer for eInk devices capable of 30 FPS when writing text

#81

Post by wingworks »

tmerse wrote: post #75
FullyFunctional wrote: post #30

This is great, looks totally usable. I've pursued that eInk life style for about a decade now :) My best setup is with a Dasung Paperlike, but in practice the ergonomics keeps me from using it often (too many things to carry outside and setup). What I hope to see one day is a Linux friendly laptop with an eInk display (frontlit for extra bonus [1]). I wouldn't use it as a replacement, but for quickly grabbing when sp…

This may be interesting for you: https://www.modos.tech/ I just heard about them recently and am curious how the final result will look like.

Looks pretty cool! And soo smooth.

Re: Show HN: A VNC viewer for eInk devices capable of 30 FPS when writing text

#82

Post by dredmorbius »

robinsoh wrote: post #73
dredmorbius wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say you might get your wish in about five years, after present patents expire. There will doubtless be new developments, but present devices are absolutely sufficient for e-book reading and most web surfing / tablet tasks, even at monochrome and modest 0.5 -- 16 Hz refresh or so. Higher-quality display is slower to refresh, though almost all instances are well under sub-second. Colour displays are slower as I und…

> after present patents expire. Which specific patents are you referring to? If you can't answer that question without googling "eink patents", then like many others who've made this claim on HN you're not in the industry and don't actually know anything about electrophoretic chemistry and don't realize what the real obstacles are. See my comment history for details.

Searching "by:robinsoh e-ink patent" over the past year turns up numerous comments, mostly variants of "I've explained this before", but none with a link to the specific explanation you have in mind. If you happen to know of a reference, it's a courtesy to others to provide it directly.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=fal...

Do you mean this comment?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28465158

Re: Show HN: A VNC viewer for eInk devices capable of 30 FPS when writing text

#83

Post by IshKebab »

_8rlb wrote: post #38
IshKebab wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Later he writes a comment saying is due to network latency. Seems a bit dubious if you ask me though.

I measured and split the latency between the main tasks of a single frame draw. The main culprit was network delay as I am transmitting raw pixels (one u8 per pixel) compressed with zlib. That's a hit of ~140ms for half a screen. Next in line is the screen refresh (unmeasured, perceived). Then the optional post processing (~20ms for half a screen), and housekeeping, like keeping track of dirty regions (about as long)…

Interesting. But updating one character should be much faster than updating the whole screen then surely since you don't have to send so much data?

By the way I suspect compressing multiple pixels into one is unnecessary - just quantise them and let the compression deal with it.

Also zlib is not designed for image compression. I'm sure there is something more suitable, e.g. QOI.

In fact, given that you're mostly compressing mono text I wouldn't be surprised if some kind of dynamic sprite atlas kind of system was better, like in JBIG2.

Anyway if it is network latency that seems like good news because you should be able to get it to near 0. What is the ping to the reader?

Re: Show HN: A VNC viewer for eInk devices capable of 30 FPS when writing text

#84

Post by Wowfunhappy »

dleslie wrote: post #77
robinsoh wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because those were simply phenomenal. I have two and I've never had a display quite their equal in direct sunlight. That's odd. I've had and evaluated the XO-1 using Jepsen's displays and found them to be of low quality for even that timeframe. Even basic things like the resolution were terrible for that time. There's good reasons why they (both OLPC and PixelQi) were unsuccessful. OLPC was a disaster and in my opi…

Direct sunlight being the key part of what I said; I've never had any other display that was so legible while sitting at the end of a dock with a blazing sun blasting straight down upon the screen. Otherwise, for sure, in general conditions it was mediocre. And yes, the whole project was sketchy as hell, in retrospect.

My Panic PlayDate, which lacks the paper-like contrast of e-ink but can refresh at 50 fps, looks fantastic in direct sunlight. I believe it’s using a Sharp Memory LCD.

So there is other tech for this.

Re: Show HN: A VNC viewer for eInk devices capable of 30 FPS when writing text

#85

Post by gbraad »

Jolter wrote: post #57
FullyFunctional wrote: post #30

This is great, looks totally usable. I've pursued that eInk life style for about a decade now :) My best setup is with a Dasung Paperlike, but in practice the ergonomics keeps me from using it often (too many things to carry outside and setup). What I hope to see one day is a Linux friendly laptop with an eInk display (frontlit for extra bonus [1]). I wouldn't use it as a replacement, but for quickly grabbing when sp…

Maybe you’re aware but the Boox Max Lumi has an HDMI In port, so you can use it as a secondary monitor for that laptop. https://shop.boox.com/products/maxlumi

The boox refresh rate is not adequate for anything besides regional (text) updates. I have used the max, max2 and the mira and they have all been pisspoor for anything besides wordprocessing. VNC and RDP have mostly been better as these protocols understand regional changes more than the Toshiba HDMI converter chip they use.

Re: Show HN: A VNC viewer for eInk devices capable of 30 FPS when writing text

#86

Post by Jolter »

gbraad wrote: post #85
Jolter wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you’re aware but the Boox Max Lumi has an HDMI In port, so you can use it as a secondary monitor for that laptop. https://shop.boox.com/products/maxlumi

The boox refresh rate is not adequate for anything besides regional (text) updates. I have used the max, max2 and the mira and they have all been pisspoor for anything besides wordprocessing. VNC and RDP have mostly been better as these protocols understand regional changes more than the Toshiba HDMI converter chip they use.

That is very interesting! Thanks for that info.

Re: Show HN: A VNC viewer for eInk devices capable of 30 FPS when writing text

#88

Post by dleslie »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #84
dleslie wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Direct sunlight being the key part of what I said; I've never had any other display that was so legible while sitting at the end of a dock with a blazing sun blasting straight down upon the screen. Otherwise, for sure, in general conditions it was mediocre. And yes, the whole project was sketchy as hell, in retrospect.

My Panic PlayDate, which lacks the paper-like contrast of e-ink but can refresh at 50 fps, looks fantastic in direct sunlight. I believe it’s using a Sharp Memory LCD. So there is other tech for this.

But it's just black and white, right? Still, that sounds promising.

Re: Show HN: A VNC viewer for eInk devices capable of 30 FPS when writing text

#89

Post by Wowfunhappy »

dleslie wrote: post #88
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Panic PlayDate, which lacks the paper-like contrast of e-ink but can refresh at 50 fps, looks fantastic in direct sunlight. I believe it’s using a Sharp Memory LCD. So there is other tech for this.

But it's just black and white, right? Still, that sounds promising.

Yes, and the pixels can only be either black or white, not shades of grey. (Although dithering is surprisingly effective.)

My Pebble Time Smartwatch had a color memory LCD which was also easy to read in direct sunlight, but the PlayDate's screen looks a lot better.

Re: Show HN: A VNC viewer for eInk devices capable of 30 FPS when writing text

#90

Post by robinsoh »

dredmorbius wrote: post #82
robinsoh wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> after present patents expire. Which specific patents are you referring to? If you can't answer that question without googling "eink patents", then like many others who've made this claim on HN you're not in the industry and don't actually know anything about electrophoretic chemistry and don't realize what the real obstacles are. See my comment history for details.

Searching "by:robinsoh e-ink patent" over the past year turns up numerous comments, mostly variants of "I've explained this before", but none with a link to the specific explanation you have in mind. If you happen to know of a reference, it's a courtesy to others to provide it directly. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=fal... Do you mean this comment? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28465…

> but none with a link to the specific explanation you have in mind. If you happen to know of a reference, it's a courtesy to others to provide it directly.

It is unclear what exactly you want explained to you. Or what reference you are referring to. I asked what patent you are pointing to as evidence of the allegation that you made and instead of addressing that, you're asking me for evidence that no such patent exists? How will I be able to do that?

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