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Valve open-source the Steam Machine e-ink screen so you can make your own

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Re: Valve open-source the Steam Machine e-ink screen so you can make your own

#81

Post by thecommakozzi »

tl wrote: post #49
delecti wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Steam Deck itself doesn't have an HDMI port, but the official dock does, and that does support HDMI-CEC (support was added to SteamOS a couple years ago). The Steam Deck also does support controller wake from sleep (added in the past year or so); I've actually seen people complaining about their Steam Decks waking up when they didn't realize that feature existed. And all of the reviews I've seen about the Steam M…

It does not. Source: have a dock. Latest firmware installed from deck. And because the current Steam controller is a recent release, I had to try a whole mess of third party controllers before settling on PS5 controllers because everything else I tried had Bluetooth pairing issues / disconnects as you approached four controllers. SteamDeck as a handheld is great plus or minus a few nits baked onto the power / battery…

Read the other replies, and i’ll restate that you are indeed confidently incorrect: i have been using this feature since the update that added it. i use the steam controller and i am using the original valve dock.

Re: Valve open-source the Steam Machine e-ink screen so you can make your own

#82

Post by Rohansi »

oliver66677 wrote: post #71
RataNova wrote: post #9

I wish more hardware companies treated these kinds of optional add-ons as something the community can run with instead of either productizing them badly or locking them away completely...

they don't expect steam machine to sell so they don't care..

They did when it was announced. And it still will, just not as much as they would have wanted to.

Re: Valve open-source the Steam Machine e-ink screen so you can make your own

#83

Post by flaunf221 »

dismalaf wrote: post #43
tra3 wrote: post #41

I would love to see an analysis of how valve's openness and goodwill affects their bottom line. Intuitively it should be a net positive for them, but there gotta be upfront costs, otherwise everyone would be doing it too.

Valve is one of the most efficient (revenue/staff) corporations there is. Far more so than most tech companies even. If that's how you measure goodwill then it seems like it works.

> Valve is one of the most efficient (revenue/staff) corporations there is

Efficiency is not a word I would use when speaking about rent-seeking. Landlord that 20 years ago bought some land that later became valuable and who is today renting it out is infinitely efficient as they are doing jack. And amount of respect they get is about equal to their economic output.

Re: Valve open-source the Steam Machine e-ink screen so you can make your own

#84

Post by preisschild »

Lord_Zero wrote: post #70
dgellow wrote: post #3

In case you're wondering and don't want to click around, the display is a standard Adafruit 5.83'' eInk panel: https://www.adafruit.com/product/6397

The real magic is the esp32, it talks to the steam box with Bluetooth. A Linux app sends metrics to the esp32 and it refreshes the display.

Why would you use esp32/bluetooth though and not just SPI/i2c directly?

Re: Valve open-source the Steam Machine e-ink screen so you can make your own

#85

Post by preisschild »

neves wrote: post #76

Whyv does a game console need a slow e-ink display?

Status Monitor

I remember a few years ago when many custom PC cases had 5.25"-bay displays to control their fans / show temperatures. Some rackmount server appliances also make use of them

Re: Valve open-source the Steam Machine e-ink screen so you can make your own

#86

Post by dismalaf »

flaunf221 wrote: post #83
dismalaf wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve is one of the most efficient (revenue/staff) corporations there is. Far more so than most tech companies even. If that's how you measure goodwill then it seems like it works.

> Valve is one of the most efficient (revenue/staff) corporations there is Efficiency is not a word I would use when speaking about rent-seeking. Landlord that 20 years ago bought some land that later became valuable and who is today renting it out is infinitely efficient as they are doing jack. And amount of respect they get is about equal to their economic output.

True but in the physical world a landlord has a monopoly over the parcel of land. Valve has a ton of competitors that seemingly get no traction and Steam is beloved.

Re: Valve open-source the Steam Machine e-ink screen so you can make your own

#87

Post by flaunf221 »

dismalaf wrote: post #86
flaunf221 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Valve is one of the most efficient (revenue/staff) corporations there is Efficiency is not a word I would use when speaking about rent-seeking. Landlord that 20 years ago bought some land that later became valuable and who is today renting it out is infinitely efficient as they are doing jack. And amount of respect they get is about equal to their economic output.

True but in the physical world a landlord has a monopoly over the parcel of land. Valve has a ton of competitors that seemingly get no traction and Steam is beloved.

No landlord owns entire planet. You never need to agree. If you want to open your store (=sell your game) you can always just rent or buy some other place that this landlord doesn't own. Like for example 150 kilometres away from here where you may get 2 visitors per day, sometimes there will even be humans.

Same with Steam. You are absolutely free to sell your game not on Steam. Except that unless you're a super massive giant selling highly anticipated game you might get no sales. But the choice to eat or starve is always up to you.

Re: Valve open-source the Steam Machine e-ink screen so you can make your own

#89

Post by mrheosuper »

birdsongs wrote: post #61
fc417fc802 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it going faster typically skips steps that are necessary for maintenance of the panel. Fine for a while but if you don't periodically run a "proper" cycle the panel could eventually be permanently damaged.

That's exactly it. I was a firmware engineer at reMarkable making the latest tablets. We had some secret eink sauce (propriety waveforms) to get the high refresh rates and colour contrast without a full flashing screen reset, but even then you need to run longer maintenance refreshes occasionally. Pixels are just vertical columns of viscous fluid with charged ink particles. A waveform is just voltage changes over tim…

Interesting. Thanks for sharing.

I have a question, hope it's not too sensitive, how do you guy protect your secret waveform ? One with enough tool and determination can just measure voltage at pixel and reverse the whole thing, the chinese can do that in less than a week i bet.

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