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Building an E-Ink Laptop

alexsoto.dev

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Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#31

Post by waiseristy »

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.

Usually you get the OS provided mouse though, running at 30 or 60hz. >20hz mouse movement is oh so horrible

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#32

Post by alex-a-soto »

zepto wrote: post #28
alex-a-soto wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wr…

I've used the monitors with Manjaro, NixOS, primarily using i3wm, and it has worked well for me. I agree; part of the software problem is the high price tag on the hardware creating a smaller community as a result.

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#33

Post by vicda »

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 did this. Latency sucks but that didn't matter for text editing.

But the drivers sucked and the screen was too small and you want to have a white background text editor just for the eink screen. Switch that to the wrong screen and you're suddenly blinded.

Was fun, but I wouldn't recommend it. Making everything dark mode is easier, or keeping screen brightness super low is the easier option.

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#34

Post by iamcreasy »

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.

Cool project. What's the refresh rate of the screen? Can you scroll down a webpage without a lot of latency?

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#35

Post by GoOnThenDoTell »

monocasa wrote: post #23
Nition wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is there a particular year coming where it becomes a free-for-all?

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#36

Post by suyula »

Has anybody tried to retrofit a transflector into a laptop LCD screen? I've got no idea if this is even possible but I'd love to be able to just trigger a brightness=0 and see a smartwatch-type display that doesn't strain my eyes.

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#37

Post by thesuperbigfrog »

suyula wrote: post #36

Has anybody tried to retrofit a transflector into a laptop LCD screen? I've got no idea if this is even possible but I'd love to be able to just trigger a brightness=0 and see a smartwatch-type display that doesn't strain my eyes.

Reminds me of old-school passive matrix LCD displays (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_matrix_addressing) on laptops in the 1990s.

It is certainly possible, just not a popular demand for most laptops.

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#38

Post by miles »

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.

Can you please add an RSS feed for your blog? Would like to subscribe for updates.

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#39

Post by dbtc »

miles wrote: post #38
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.

Can you please add an RSS feed for your blog? Would like to subscribe for updates.

What program do you use for rss subscriptions?

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#40

Post by polshaw »

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…

Power consumption is not the only thing going for e-ink. The major win for e-ink IMO is readability in direct sunlight. If it's a nice day outside I have to stay indoors (or at least in shade) in order to do work. The only reason is that I can't see my display well.

As noted, we already have e-ink phones that can do both colour and video[1], while there is some ghosting it's getting to the point of usable. Just need a big display to match it.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EakZQlPvgIY&t=9m35s

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