Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Evertop: E-ink IBM XT clone with 100+ hours of battery life

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 200 posts

Re: Evertop: E-ink IBM XT clone with 100+ hours of battery life

#81

Post by ggm »

3 decades ago I did upgrade logistics for NMR labs using HP and Nixdorf based backends to run the machines. What amazed me was how the HP gui was X10. pre X10R4. They decided "good enough" and commercialised a species of interface with a trackball and keyboard, which at least in terms of GUI styling was 1:1 congruent with X10R1 as I saw it in 85 or so. I continue to notice this interface on Ultrasound and like, I guess having coded the FPGAs to work, they just stopped changing it.

It wouldn't surprise me if XT was similar. I remember doing a pre-purchase review of DirecTV and the sat management was OS/2, long long after it was deprecated. Same behaviour in aerospace: keep the tech which works. This is why German armed forces were recently commissioning USB compatible SD type storage with insanely huge plugs, and slow interfaces, to replace 8" and 5.25" media for field upgrades of some devices.

Re: Evertop: E-ink IBM XT clone with 100+ hours of battery life

#82

Post by hliyan »

jmward01 wrote: post #15

I think there is a class of device here that is missing. Low power but forever devices that have some basic functionality. Over time I could see this taking over laptops and the like as ultra-low-power became more and more capable.

On that note, whatever happened to netbooks? As someone who writes a lot and need a mobile device to do it on, they used to be perfect. Can't seem to find the form factor anymore. Even the smallest Chromebook seems only slightly smaller than a laptop.

Re: Evertop: E-ink IBM XT clone with 100+ hours of battery life

#84

Post by FranOntanaya »

hliyan wrote: post #82
jmward01 wrote: post #15

I think there is a class of device here that is missing. Low power but forever devices that have some basic functionality. Over time I could see this taking over laptops and the like as ultra-low-power became more and more capable.

On that note, whatever happened to netbooks? As someone who writes a lot and need a mobile device to do it on, they used to be perfect. Can't seem to find the form factor anymore. Even the smallest Chromebook seems only slightly smaller than a laptop.

It's tablet cases with bluetooth keyboard now.

Re: Evertop: E-ink IBM XT clone with 100+ hours of battery life

#85

Post by redundantly »

kstrauser wrote: post #75
codebje wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably https://www.good-display.com/product/440.html which is also 1mil refresh cycles and a fast refresh time of 1.5sec - around 185 hours of screen updates, so ~3 months of 5hrs a day typing or a few years of e-reader style usage. I can't really see a device like this getting used super heavily every day, so expecting it to still be usable from time to time for a few years seems reasonable to me.

For e-ink, does the refresh count include the entire screen or individual pixels?

From what I can tell, a partial refresh of the display (updating a smaller portion of the screen) performs less wear on the display than a full refresh, but it can still accumulate over time. Additionally some displays will require a full refresh after a certain number of partial refreshes to deal with ghosting.

Re: Evertop: E-ink IBM XT clone with 100+ hours of battery life

#86

Post by redundantly »

tlhunter wrote: post #80
kstrauser wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the wrong form factor for me, though. A TRS-80 Model 100 with modern guts would be my ideal, but something like this but with a faster screen would be nearly a tie.

In case you haven't seen this: https://www.clockworkpi.com/home-devterm

This is not a suitable modern equivalent to the TRS-80 Model 100. It is much smaller and so uncomfortable to use. The arrow keys and trackball are well below subpar, and the software support isn't great.

Re: Evertop: E-ink IBM XT clone with 100+ hours of battery life

#87

Post by kstrauser »

redundantly wrote: post #85
kstrauser wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For e-ink, does the refresh count include the entire screen or individual pixels?

From what I can tell, a partial refresh of the display (updating a smaller portion of the screen) performs less wear on the display than a full refresh, but it can still accumulate over time. Additionally some displays will require a full refresh after a certain number of partial refreshes to deal with ghosting.

Huh, interesting. I don't know anything about it, but my Kobo Libra has settings for how often to refresh the whole screen (e.g. every N pages, at the end of the chapter, etc.).

Re: Evertop: E-ink IBM XT clone with 100+ hours of battery life

#88

Post by kstrauser »

tlhunter wrote: post #80
kstrauser wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the wrong form factor for me, though. A TRS-80 Model 100 with modern guts would be my ideal, but something like this but with a faster screen would be nearly a tie.

In case you haven't seen this: https://www.clockworkpi.com/home-devterm

I've drooled over those a few times. All of their models are out of stock right now, though, which makes me wonder if they're still making them.

Re: Evertop: E-ink IBM XT clone with 100+ hours of battery life

#89

Post by kstrauser »

redundantly wrote: post #86
tlhunter wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case you haven't seen this: https://www.clockworkpi.com/home-devterm

This is not a suitable modern equivalent to the TRS-80 Model 100. It is much smaller and so uncomfortable to use. The arrow keys and trackball are well below subpar, and the software support isn't great.

Ouch. I'd had my eye on those before but hadn't heard reviews one way or the other. Those would be bummers.
Post reply on HN