All it's missing is WordPerfect 5.1 in DosBox!
Time to talk about my writerdeck
271–280 of 303 posts
Re: Time to talk about my writerdeck
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess I will setup something similar or more complex. But there are alternatives: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12114947 "George R.R. Martin Writes on a DOS-Based Word Processor From the 1980s". No internet, no multi tasking.
That's doing wonders for his productivity.
I mean really… he hasn’t finished writing a book that’s narratively trapped but he certainly has been writing and working on a lot more than that one book. He certainly is productive at the very least. Is he satisfying your direct desires and expectations about what he should be working on? No. Does that mean his writing device is unproductive or bad or silly or a waste of time? No.
Re: Time to talk about my writerdeck
#273This is an awesome setup. I like it, good job. That said, I do think there's a bit of irony to solving your "paying attention to writing" problem by setting up your OS from scratch, choosing to swap out the default networking stack, installing a novel flavor of your preferred text editor because you're "trying to get to know it a bit more," customizing your battery readouts, tweaking the login sequence, and then, aft…
This is a thing I see everywhere. It’s the carpenter who mostly just builds jigs and french cleats for their workshop. Or the programmer who spends far too much time obsessing over what keyboard and font to use.
I myself am a 3D printer who mostly prints accessories for 3D printing.
Re: Time to talk about my writerdeck
#274There's a pattern that I notice a lot on HN. "To solve this problem, I engineered an entire system from scratch." Response: "That's a cool solution. But, isn't it a lot more work than this straightforward solution?" (the user is right - the complicated solution is massively more work than the straightforward one) Response: "Yes, but it's a cool project - it's OK to not be the most efficient all the time." (also right…
> it's OK to not be the most efficient all the time is it ? it's a non-negligible reason for the absolutely unsufferable technological world we are currently living in
Really? Do elaborate.
Re: Time to talk about my writerdeck
#275There's a pattern that I notice a lot on HN. "To solve this problem, I engineered an entire system from scratch." Response: "That's a cool solution. But, isn't it a lot more work than this straightforward solution?" (the user is right - the complicated solution is massively more work than the straightforward one) Response: "Yes, but it's a cool project - it's OK to not be the most efficient all the time." (also right…
> it's OK to not be the most efficient all the time is it ? it's a non-negligible reason for the absolutely unsufferable technological world we are currently living in
It absolutely is wonderfully alright to not be the most efficient all the time. I'm going to use this opportunity to quote Kurt Vonnegut at length:
I work at home, and if I wanted to, I could have a computer right by my bed, and I’d never have to leave it. But I use a typewriter, and afterwards I mark up the pages with a pencil. Then I call up this woman named Carol out in Woodstock and say, “Are you still doing typing?” Sure she is, and her husband is trying to track bluebirds out there and not having much luck, and so we chitchat back and forth, and I say, “OK, I’ll send you the pages.”
Then I’m going down the steps, and my wife calls up, “Where are you going?” I say, “Well, I’m going to go buy an envelope.” And she says, “You’re not a poor man. Why don’t you buy a thousand envelopes? They’ll deliver them, and you can put them in a closet.” And I say, “Hush.” So I go down the steps here, and I go out to this newsstand across the street where they sell magazines and lottery tickets and stationery. I have to get in line because there are people buying candy and all that sort of thing, and I talk to them. The woman behind the counter has a jewel between her eyes, and when it’s my turn, I ask her if there have been any big winners lately. I get my envelope and seal it up and go to the postal convenience center down the block at the corner of 47th Street and 2nd Avenue, where I’m secretly in love with the woman behind the counter. I keep absolutely poker-faced; I never let her know how I feel about her. One time I had my pocket picked in there and got to meet a cop and tell him about it. Anyway, I address the envelope to Carol in Woodstock. I stamp the envelope and mail it in a mailbox in front of the post office, and I go home. And I’ve had a hell of a good time. And I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you any different.
Re: Time to talk about my writerdeck
#276i saw this video the other day on youtube (veronica's yt channel is great if you haven't watched!), and cool to see other people doing it as well. it reminded me of a similar setup i have, dubbed 'protocol7', which is a tty-only setup tailored for this kind of thing and for use on servers/headless pi setups. i use it for writing, intentional reading/browsing via lynx, managing gemini capsules (and reading gemini capsules - thank you amfora!), and just all-round "cozy computing". tmux-heavy, and (to me) very comfortable to use.
my current 'protocol7' machine is my trusty old thinkpad x200. :)
Re: Time to talk about my writerdeck
#277Wonder if Lynx can connect to ChatGPT.
Re: Time to talk about my writerdeck
#278fuzix (or serenityOS/Haiku)+mechanical or magnetic keyboard 60-80% but with home, arrow, ins, pgup-down del. And a week of working time on one charge
Re: Time to talk about my writerdeck
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
> bound to the vendor data service for any connected functionality. This is why I don't own a Freewrite. It should be such a simple device, but they found a way to make it complicated and lock it into their proprietary ecosystem. No thanks.
It would be a better device if I could install cfw and make it somewhat more versatile. But I haven't found anyone doing that, and haven't even found enough specs online to get started.
I ought to do a write up, but If you open it up the UART pads are available to get a U-Boot console. U-boot is in HAB mode, with a custom signed debian buster kernel. This was my first time dealing wit u-boot, but it was otherwise pretty open and was able to write to ENV and FS from the u-boot console, which let me stop the Freewrite app from starting, boot into root shell, turn on SSH, etc. So you can get into userspace and replace the UI and whole app. When I dropped this project I had it booting shell onto the e-ink, with a command to drop back into the Freewrite app if I wanted.
Then they released the new app, which looked like it was also just in userspace (not a kernel or fw update) so I wanted to start over with the update, but never got back to it.
Re: Time to talk about my writerdeck
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
Looks great but the price is pretty insane, and really the eink should be a lot bigger. So much wasted space on the bezels.
For some reason writerdecks almost all insist on having tiny little screens.
I think it's more a supply chain issue. There aren't any very stretched rectangular eInk panels from what I've been seeing. I've seen some for price tags but I mean nothing like 8-10 inches or so.
And they're such a niche phenomenon that they have to do with the scraps left by other industries like ereaders.