Hello!

I'm wondering if anyone might have suggestions for a project I'm thinking about:

I've recently been working on taking an old Asus eee pc 701 I've had laying around and turning it into the ultimate "Writer's Computer." The idea has been to create a sort of souped-up typewriter that keeps distractions to a minimum but yet still has lots of excellent writing functionality, syncs with dropbox, etc. I've managed to set up a nice little console-only system that's lightning fast, does excellent word processing (using a combination of Vim, markdown syntax, and Pandoc), syncs with Dropbox, and has lots of other great writing and note-taking functionality--all with a less-than-3gb footprint.

In thinking about what else would make it even more perfect for composing, it occurred to me that a screen that's particularly easy on the eyes and can be read easily in sunlight would be ideal (I like to write outside). So that's got me wondering about the possibility of replacing the lcd with some kind of e-ink screen. While I've taken the thing apart and put it back together again several times, I'm not terribly familiar with hardware issues, so I'm wondering if anyone might have any suggestions about whether this might be possible and, if so, how it might be done?

Thanks!

Mark

Have you done any research into e-ink screens? Connections for LCD screens in laptops tend to be one-offs, I don't know of any particular standard connector or protocol used to connect them to motherboards. You'd need to know the pin out, then there's the problem in that e-ink screens don't work the same way as LDC ones do. They only use power when something on the screen changes as the "cell" has to be flipped from black to white. It's a bit like the electromechanical destination boards used on some buses (Not the LED ones!) The driver circuitry will therefore be totally different. (That's a "bit like", it's not electromechanical as such.)

That also would mean flicker... For every character entered you would get a screen refresh where it goes blank then rewrites the data. A bit like the original Sinclair ZX80.

My

I've still got my Eee PC 701 somewhere with Puppy Linux on it. Sounds like you've still got a useful little laptop there! Well done!

Play Bonny!

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Thanks so much! I was afraid something like this would be the case with trying to mod a used screen from an ereader or something into the eee case.

I've recently had another thought, though: I've seen some pieces about certain ereaders that are sufficiently hackable to run a stock version of Android, and some about people using them as secondary monitors. I wonder if it would be possible to take such an ereader (an older Kindle, for example), and use it as a sort of "Second" monitor through a vnc connection? Obviously the refresh rate would be slow, but then this is a console-only system, so it's not like there'd be complex moving graphics or video going on. Any ideas there?

And in any case, thank you for your thoughts!

Mark

You mean use an old keyboard Kindle as a network connected terminal? I'm not really sure but Googling "Kindle keyboard terminal" gives quite a few hits suggesting that it's not impossible.

Checking eBay gives quite a selection from 25GBP to 40GBP so it might not be too pricey to give it a go!

Good luck and Play Bonny!

i have a very similar machine, and was thinking along the same lines.
then i took it with me on a summer holiday, and realized that i can read ebooks well enough, as long as it's pure black / pure white.
i did put some anti-glare foil on the screen. that's a cheap item, you can cut it to size and make it so that it goes under the bezel.

I'd forgotten that I'd posted this. Thought I'd post my solution!

Ultimately this was easier than I'd imagined!

- Started with an old Kindle Touch, and it occurred to me that there's no reason to actually try to mod the e-ink screen into the eee701 housing--why lose the ability to use the touch as an ereader and the ability to use the normal eee screen when desired?

So, ultimately it was a very simple set of hacks:

1. Jailbreak the Kindle, and install KUAL, KTERM, and USBnetworking.
2. Connect the Kindle via usb to the eee
3. On the eee, set usb0 to a convenient ip:

4. On the Kindle, use KTERM to ssh into the eee:

5. On the kindle, start a tmux session:

6. On the eee, access that same session:

Voila! One can type on the eee and it's mirrored on the Kindle screen. It's just slightly slow in terms of refresh rate but quite acceptable for just writing. The Kindle itself simply leans against the eee screen, and a couple of small velcro pieces keep it from slipping.

I've also expanded the functionality of the eee and console-only interface by switching to emacs orgmode.A new 9-cell battery for the eee, plus the console-only interface, provides very long battery life.

Hope this is helpful! I'd be happy to receive any further ideas or suggestions!

Mark