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Pine64 Unveils Quartz64 SBC

cnx-software.com

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Re: Pine64 Unveils Quartz64 SBC

#61

Post by voltagex_ »

CameronNemo wrote: post #43
captainmuon wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry about the price - when the e-ink patent overlords learn that they are not being used for blessed purposes (digital signage or ebook readers) but as general purpose display sold to end users (gasp!) they'll probably become mysteriously unavailable. (Source: our company tried to buy e-ink displays to integrate into a product. All I can say is, it is difficult...)

Kobo's Clara HD is 99$, runs post market OS, has a small 1GHz core and 512 MB of RAM. Great low end option IMO.

Pity, they're $200+ in Australia.

Re: Pine64 Unveils Quartz64 SBC

#62

Post by novok »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #58
captainmuon wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry about the price - when the e-ink patent overlords learn that they are not being used for blessed purposes (digital signage or ebook readers) but as general purpose display sold to end users (gasp!) they'll probably become mysteriously unavailable. (Source: our company tried to buy e-ink displays to integrate into a product. All I can say is, it is difficult...)

What's the motivation for the vendors to vet use cases/limit sales?

Probably linked to failure rates due to significantly higher page updates than an ebook or sign.

Re: Pine64 Unveils Quartz64 SBC

#63

Post by mikenew »

CameronNemo wrote: post #43
captainmuon wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry about the price - when the e-ink patent overlords learn that they are not being used for blessed purposes (digital signage or ebook readers) but as general purpose display sold to end users (gasp!) they'll probably become mysteriously unavailable. (Source: our company tried to buy e-ink displays to integrate into a product. All I can say is, it is difficult...)

Kobo's Clara HD is 99$, runs post market OS, has a small 1GHz core and 512 MB of RAM. Great low end option IMO.

Do you mean that they come stock running postmarketOS, or just that you can install it?

Re: Pine64 Unveils Quartz64 SBC

#64

Post by CameronNemo »

mikenew wrote: post #63
CameronNemo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kobo's Clara HD is 99$, runs post market OS, has a small 1GHz core and 512 MB of RAM. Great low end option IMO.

Do you mean that they come stock running postmarketOS, or just that you can install it?

You can run pmOS. Not stock.

Re: Pine64 Unveils Quartz64 SBC

#65

Post by ggm »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #55
rbanffy wrote: post #50

With 8 GB it becomes a viable small desktop box.

With all of the connectors and interfaces, this is more of a dev board. The article notes that CPU performance is similar to the Raspberry Pi 4, which is already available with 8GB of RAM and has better mainstream support.

Lacks the PCI. If you get the compute boards, you can get it, and then use a carrier board to do things e.g. quad-Sata disk stuff.

I'm using the Pi4 with the 4 port SATA card through USB, and its just-about ok. I'm happy, but I'd love to try direct PCI access

Re: Pine64 Unveils Quartz64 SBC

#66

Post by robinsoh »

captainmuon wrote: post #31
ed25519FUUU wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worry more about the price of a 10 inch e-ink panel.

Don't worry about the price - when the e-ink patent overlords learn that they are not being used for blessed purposes (digital signage or ebook readers) but as general purpose display sold to end users (gasp!) they'll probably become mysteriously unavailable. (Source: our company tried to buy e-ink displays to integrate into a product. All I can say is, it is difficult...)

> when the e-ink patent overlords

Any evidence of this? Everytime someone mentions this, I ask, and I get no evidence. If this kind of allegation was true, I'd expect tonnes of publications to jump on this.

> our company tried to buy e-ink displays to integrate into a product. All I can say is, it is difficult

I perceive this as equivalent to my company trying to buy 100 displays straight from Samsung and then alleging that it is hard to do. It is all about volume. Even a 1000 and they won't talk to you. It has to be in the 100k volumes before the actual device vendors talk to you. Otherwise you go through distributors just like everyone else.

Re: Pine64 Unveils Quartz64 SBC

#69

Post by captainmuon »

robinsoh wrote: post #66
captainmuon wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry about the price - when the e-ink patent overlords learn that they are not being used for blessed purposes (digital signage or ebook readers) but as general purpose display sold to end users (gasp!) they'll probably become mysteriously unavailable. (Source: our company tried to buy e-ink displays to integrate into a product. All I can say is, it is difficult...)

> when the e-ink patent overlords Any evidence of this? Everytime someone mentions this, I ask, and I get no evidence. If this kind of allegation was true, I'd expect tonnes of publications to jump on this. > our company tried to buy e-ink displays to integrate into a product. All I can say is, it is difficult I perceive this as equivalent to my company trying to buy 100 displays straight from Samsung and then allegi…

Well we regularly buy LCD panels in large and small quantities from big manufacturers, and distributors, in order to integrate them into our industrial PCs. While we are not a household name, we're big in our niche and I'd say we have industry experience.

I was not on the project and I'm not in purchasing, so I don't know the details, but from what I heard it was quite odd. The vendor (not e-ink, but a downstream integrator) was first willing to sell thousands of units, we got a devkit from them and started developing. But suddenly they were like "What is your business plan sir?" and "I'm afraid we cannot sell at the moment". The quantity was not the problem, they sounded like they were not happy with the use case.

The reason you never see hard evidence is that there is no evidence to be found - it's just that the vendors behave "odd" and are picky with whom they sell to.

Re: Pine64 Unveils Quartz64 SBC

#70

Post by captainmuon »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #58
captainmuon wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry about the price - when the e-ink patent overlords learn that they are not being used for blessed purposes (digital signage or ebook readers) but as general purpose display sold to end users (gasp!) they'll probably become mysteriously unavailable. (Source: our company tried to buy e-ink displays to integrate into a product. All I can say is, it is difficult...)

What's the motivation for the vendors to vet use cases/limit sales?

My crazy conspiracy theory is that there is some ownership overlap with traditional display manufacturers. If it gets used widely as a general-purpose display this can cannibalize sales of LCDs as the technology gets better and cheaper. [1]

That's one reason you can get good and cheap e-ink if you are building an ebook reader [2], or if you are building these little price displays for the shelves in supermarkets. But if you want a monitor, you have to either pay a lot of money or buy something for tinkerers, there is no inbetween.

----

[1] The rational reason would be that they have only limited production or support capacity, and sell to the easiest, most lucrative customers first.

[2] Of course, for e-book readers you also have the benefit of scale if you are Amazon or Sony. But there are also smaller vendors, and in the case of the digital price tags the companies that make them are mostly smallish businesses.

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