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Building an E-Ink Laptop

alexsoto.dev

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Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#21

Post by fortran77 »

derekp7 wrote: post #14
myself248 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what I don't get, is there's no shortage of jurisdictions where intellectual property doesn't seem to be worth the paper it's printed on, and really convincing counterfeits flood some well-known markets. Where are the e-ink knockoffs? What sort of enforcement are these folks doing that nobody else seems to be able to?

The truth is that most real consumers (as apposed to us technologists) don't want e-ink technology. It is monochrome, can't do video, limited interactive due to refresh rate and ghosting... the only real thing it has going for it is low power usage. And that pairs well with applications where you spend a long time staring at the screen, and periodically initiating a compute burst to change the screen contents. In oth…

The "Patents are Bad!" trope always comes up in any e-ink thread. Not sure why. I love e-ink (I prefer to read books on a kindle), but I think if the demand were there the prices would come down, as you pointed out.

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#23

Post by monocasa »

Nition wrote: post #17
jagger27 wrote: post #8

$1000 for the screen. These E-ink patents can’t expire soon enough.

One thing I don't get: Aren't the patents from the 90s? And US patents last 20 years, right? So why haven't they expired already?

They've got patents with issue dates through the mid 2000s.

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#24

Post by pabs3 »

FlyMoreRockets wrote: post #18
jagger27 wrote: post #8

$1000 for the screen. These E-ink patents can’t expire soon enough.

The PixelQi display spun from the OLPC project was really good and clearly affordable, considering the original target market. Granted, E-ink is superior in many aspects, but I'd settle for a sunlight readable, low power monochrome LCD display. As an added benefit it updates much faster than E-ink.

It appears that the Pixel Qi company no longer exists unfortunately:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_Qi

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#25

Post by alex-a-soto »

zepto wrote: post #12
alex-a-soto wrote: post #2

Hey folks, I've recently had the idea of building an e-ink laptop from the devices I had at home. I decided to document the process and share each step of the way: Some of the posts planned for the series are: Dasung Paperlike HD-FT teardown, Thinkpad T480 teardown, Creating the prototype, Installing and configuring NixOS, M-x e-ink-laptop-mode If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach out.

Great project - I’ve also thought about this kind of thing. Have you experimented with the Dasung Display much? I tried one and found it too noisy at displaying text. Admittedly it was just connected to a Mac, but it deterred me from keeping hold of it. Also - does ‘M-x e-ink-laptop-mode’ refer to a real thing, or is that a placeholder for something you are going to write?

Thank you! Yes! I own a Dasung Paperlike Pro and Dasung Paperlike HD-FT. The Paperlike Pro required a driver to change modes/make adjustments. The Dasung Paperlike HD-FT is excellent; you don't have to install any drivers.

I've used the monitors for a few years now, and some adjustments need to be made and vary on the operating system used, the fonts/text being one of the settings to change.

The M-x e-ink-laptop-mode, was about emacs. I spend most of my time in emacs, and I intend to write an "eink-laptop-mode" that adjusts color, text, makes it more suitable for writing, etc.

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#27

Post by the_only_law »

jonnycomputer wrote: post #26

I wish I had a large e-ink display for coding. I imagine a large screen would be prohibitively expensive, and the latency will be terrible. Too bad. It would be nice for my eyes.

I just want one for reading docs, specs, etc. Yeah the latency could be bad, but I recall reading somewhere that they can reach around 20hz overclocked which can’t be that bad. I’m pretty sure I’ve played games limited to 20fps before.

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#28

Post by zepto »

alex-a-soto wrote: post #25
zepto wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great project - I’ve also thought about this kind of thing. Have you experimented with the Dasung Display much? I tried one and found it too noisy at displaying text. Admittedly it was just connected to a Mac, but it deterred me from keeping hold of it. Also - does ‘M-x e-ink-laptop-mode’ refer to a real thing, or is that a placeholder for something you are going to write?

Thank you! Yes! I own a Dasung Paperlike Pro and Dasung Paperlike HD-FT. The Paperlike Pro required a driver to change modes/make adjustments. The Dasung Paperlike HD-FT is excellent; you don't have to install any drivers. I've used the monitors for a few years now, and some adjustments need to be made and vary on the operating system used, the fonts/text being one of the settings to change. The M-x e-ink-laptop-mode…

> I've used the monitors for a few years now, and some adjustments need to be made and vary on the operating system used, the fonts/text being one of the settings to change.

I found the Mac desktop didn’t work particularly well. I was considering trying a text only setup - e.g. Linux with i3, but never got around to it.

> The M-x e-ink-laptop-mode, was about emacs. I spend most of my time in emacs, and I intend to write an "eink-laptop-mode" that adjusts color, text, makes it more suitable for writing, etc.

That’s what I guessed. I agree e-ink needs software adaptation to get the best out of it.

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#29

Post by BohdanAnderson »

derekp7 wrote: post #14
myself248 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what I don't get, is there's no shortage of jurisdictions where intellectual property doesn't seem to be worth the paper it's printed on, and really convincing counterfeits flood some well-known markets. Where are the e-ink knockoffs? What sort of enforcement are these folks doing that nobody else seems to be able to?

The truth is that most real consumers (as apposed to us technologists) don't want e-ink technology. It is monochrome, can't do video, limited interactive due to refresh rate and ghosting... the only real thing it has going for it is low power usage. And that pairs well with applications where you spend a long time staring at the screen, and periodically initiating a compute burst to change the screen contents. In oth…

There is some new Eink phones out that have colour! But wihtout google play store, and they are still probably a long way off from having 10" + screens with colour. https://goodereader.com/blog/reviews/hisense-pro-cc-color-e-...

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#30

Post by jonnycomputer »

the_only_law wrote: post #27
jonnycomputer wrote: post #26

I wish I had a large e-ink display for coding. I imagine a large screen would be prohibitively expensive, and the latency will be terrible. Too bad. It would be nice for my eyes.

I just want one for reading docs, specs, etc. Yeah the latency could be bad, but I recall reading somewhere that they can reach around 20hz overclocked which can’t be that bad. I’m pretty sure I’ve played games limited to 20fps before.

Hmm. Perhaps my experience with my nook and kindle are biasing me here. But those are also using the screen as a touch interface, which might be the bigger source of latency.

I'd mostly emacs in it, which seems pretty suitable for e-ink displays.

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