I bought a 1st gen Freewrite back when it was the Hemingwrite on Kickstarter, I'm pretty embarrassed to say. I still haven't forgiven myself.
I've wasted waaay too much thought on that thing: why won't the founders just release an API like they originally promised, why did they delete the entire Freewrite forum full of many complaints right before a new model was released, why... and here I am... sucked in again, whining... publicly. Jeez.
Anyone out there thinking of buying one these things, my gentle suggestion is don't. Really just don't. I'll let you borrow all my wasted time so that you don't have to waste yours.
The most gracious thing I can say is that wasting my precious time and hard-earned cash on a Freewrite taught me a very important lesson... do not be seduced by slick marketing and a new device to solve what is at its heart a self-discipline problem.
On a positive note, it got me into exploring the dead art of writing on actual typewriters. A typewriter is a good deal more useful than a Freewrite, version control on the page for example. I can edit and rewrite with a pen. Good times.
I'm a professional screenwriter and often use a typewriter for first drafts or when I'm super stuck on something or procrastinating on a hard deadline. It's a good way to get things moving. I OCR the pages into emacs and fountain-mode to rewrite until the inevitable time comes when production needs the script in Final Draft... which is a sad moment, but so it goes.
I took an unfortunate road filled with regret that led to way of working that I love. So there's that.
I've been having a joyful time exploring art tools lately and - in a turn similar to switching back to a classic typewriter, I recently realized that ballpoint pens, the same kind I doodled with in school, are, in fact, great sketching pens. The oily ink in most of them isn't made to last, and they have a nasty habit of spurting out dabs of ink at random when you move the pen, but they let you make thin, faint, precise lines and add layers of shading and texture, and they're stingy with ink usage and don't saturate the paper. So I can sketch with ballpoint and then use my "nicer" pens to add finished lines.
I have a decent enough digital art setup, but I really find myself drawn to traditional lately. Like, the input just isn't as good in digital for doing characterful lines. There are pretty good stylus systems now, but they have a handful of different shapes and nib frictions, the raw output is always a little bit too aliased to be satisfying, and it always ends up going into software that stabilizes it into a generic swooshy line. So you have to work at it to get something like an analog result. And most of the things you really benefit from in digital happen either at the beginning(edits to help with planning) or at the end(corrections and layered treatments).
But the two things that help the most are also there in traditional: use references, and make straight ruler lines and take measurements to help get the initial shapes in proportion. If you're mashing the undo a lot you're still wasting time that is mostly accounted for by good planning and use of technical drawing tools.
And writing really is the same way. Good command of language isn't really restricted by slow writing speed.
I do a similar thing with my own typewriter, the in-phone OCR with the iPhone is remarkably good now, only a few minor mistakes when I use it to scan in typewritten pages. It’s nice to have a different way of working when I want to. Usually I write longhand then type it up later.
Yes - you can still get a great reliable workhorse typewriter and have it professionally serviced for less than the cost of a Hemingwrite. I have 3 at home and use one regularly.
I'm a PhD student, and as a result often have to write. I've always had the problem of editing as I type, constantly back tracking, writing alternate versions of a sentence, insisting that I get it right the first pass.
Increasingly, I've taken to outlining my work (like Xe Iaso recommends[0]) on pad and paper (helps if you have a nice pen and nice paper), and then trying to write a stream of consciousness for each section.
Then, I'll go to my text editor of choice and start forming more coherent, cogent, and discrete thoughts and arguments from the previous word salad.
All to say, I appreciate that typewriters make it really hard to revise your work while you're writing as it facilitates that draft phase. Same deal with writing in pen, you can only scratch out so much before the page becomes an ink rag.
Perhaps this implementation was sloppy in that it _only_ has this no-cursor/no-backspace mode. A physical dial could be a cool alternative ("Draft Mode", "Editing Mode")
If you want to focus, you can't beat something like notepad.exe on Windows or "Text Editor" on Ubuntu, or something like that.
Why?
Because it is basic, but it isn't actively trying to be hipster or minimal or whatever. In the case of notepad.exe it is actively despised: who has said they like notepad.exe other than in jest? And they are pretty minimal on features. All there is is you and the words that YOU will be writing.
There is no meta-thinking about the editor. No "planning the planning session to shave the yak to build the gaant chart to start the project". You just start tapping the keys.
When I need to make a note and need no friction I often open a notepad window. Later on I decide "shit I better save this!".
See also: a pencil and a piece of slightly creased cheap A4 copy paper.
The author is grumbling that this very special purpose device doesn't have quite the feature set he wants.
The era of writing on paper was backed by a large human staff of typists, rewriters, fact-checkers, editors, and Linotype operators. Everything was re-keyed several times before it reached print. It's not about nostalgia for typewriters. It's about nostalgia for servants.
That is a curious take, but I fail to see how it is relevant in here. These products are directed towards writers who have a romantic notion of historic writers hunched over their keyboards while being free of worldly distractions. It is not one of the office worker passing their work off to a secretary to be typed up. (Admittedly, the article's author seems to suggest that it would be a better fit for the nostalgia for servants when they talk about how writing used to be done.)
We had something like this in school circa 1995 or 1996.
It had a keyboard and a three-line LCD display. It was powered by batteries, and could be connected to a computer as a keyboard via ADB. Press a button on the device, and it would send your document as a series of keypresses to the computer. I think our classroom had two of these? I'm not sure. You could take them outside and write, and then bring them back to the classroom and dump them into the computer. No software necessary.
When I try to look it up, I get results for AlphaSmart. I wonder how much they cost at the time. Sometimes you can figure that out by digging through computer catalogs on the Internet Archive.
I understand that this is a whole category of devices called "word processors", but I'm a bit too young and I never really encountered them besides the AlphaSmart (which required a computer). You can dig up old commercials for word processors on YouTube.
Yes, he even mentioned the AlphaSmart in the article. I had a Neo...an excellent writing device with a great keyboard, fantastic battery life, and enough storage to keep me satisfied for a week or so (and the editor was full screen, none of this "only go forward" crap). The only thing it required a computer for was to offload the text you'd written...and with additional software, you could even upload files to it and modify the fonts to give you more lines per screen.
I disagree with the premise that a typewriter is a lousy first-draft device. My old-school writing technique before I got my first computer was to type a first draft (on a manual typewriter), full of typos and ^H^H^HXXX corrections. Since I had a manual typewriter back in high school, but tended not to have paper for it, most of those first drafts were typed onto whatever paper I could come up with. Then, I would edit it on paper and do a clean draft on the electric typewriter at the school newspaper office, using liquid paper to fix the inevitable typos.
I still do something similar now, although I use Word instead of a typewriter. I print the first draft, edit on paper and retype from scratch for a second draft. I always print that and do (at least) one more editing round afterwards. Sometimes I may do a complete retype deep into the revising practice as things become more dramatically changed.
I almost ordered a Freewrite a few years ago but I got a whiff of the jank at the last minute, and thought better of it. My use case is writing fiction, probably around 100k words a year, and I am easily distracted (especially since pandemic WFH came along and shredded what was left of my attention span) so I wanted a device that would frictionlessly support my writing (in plaintext Markdown) without internet connectivity or any other bullshit.
I bought a Pomera DM30 instead, and I love it. I haven't seen it mentioned in this article or thread, so I thought I should call it out. There is no US keyboard version, but the learning curve for the Japanese layout wasn't too bad, and otherwise it's perfect: small size, e-ink screen, plaintext editor saving files to onboard flash (easily accessible with USB) or SD card. There is no pointing device, but (and I'm saying this as someone who wrote a novel in Vim) the editor provides enough commands to get around a document without too much trouble. More than anything else I think it's the screen size that discourages pathological editing-as-you-write, especially if you pick a comfortable font size.
The DM30 is a serious tool for people who want to get work done. If the idea of the Freewrite appeals to you but you feel like the Freewrite itself is bullshit, check out the DM30. It's also significantly cheaper.
It really is odd to me that there's not a wide range of "general purpose computing e-ink devices" out there, and even odder that this thing is apparently not that either.
Display cost remains a huge barrier, with little thanks to E-Ink's (the company) control over patents and I'm presuming excusive contracts.
I've some sympathy as hardware is a mug's game and price competition when it does hit is absolutely brutal.
That said, the 10" and 13" displays available now are excellent, and are being found in Android tablets (sold as e-book readers, but fully general-purpose). The Onyx BOOX line for example.
Android itself is hugely limiting in numerous ways. I'd like to see actual e-ink laptops, and suspect we will before too much longer.
A quick note on power use: if the device is only used for reading reasonably static text, battery life is exceptional. Once radios, backlights, and in particular web-surfing are added to the workload, power draw really ramps up. You'll get a full day or two off a charge, but not a week or more as with reading books.
My sense is that trying to browse the internet on e-ink kinda sucks, so you're left with devices that you don't browse the web with... and they're competing against tablets, phones, and laptops. It's hard for me to imagine what market you'd have for an consumer e-ink device besides e-readers and word processors.
Refresh times is probably part of it. And once you start creating special-purpose devices, your market drops off a lot. I guess if I spent a lot of my days reading scientific papers a Remarkable tablet might be interesting but I don't so it isn't. (And, oh, an iPad works pretty well too and I can do a lot of other things with it too.)
Being offline helps. I've recently taken to writing on a Power Mac G5 paired with a Cinema display. Nothing fancy, just a window of TextEdit. No notifications or Internet to distract. A silent operating system running on a loud tower. My writing happy place.
I did something similar in my university days, albeit wit a Macintosh IIci running System 6. With Multifinder disabled, there was a sufficiently high barrier to switching tasks that I could focus on writing.
A few comments as someone who has done a lot of writing both pre- and post-computers.
- I am most certainly not Hemingway but you could write on a typewriter--especially inverted pyramid, newspaper style. Yes, you did compose a sentence or a paragraph mentally. And, then, between you and/or an editor there was various (literal) cutting and pasting/scratching out/etc.
- However, you get used to certain styles of doing things. These days, I mostly don't even like writing someplace I don't have Internet access because I'm accustomed to being able to check facts, look something up, etc. on the fly. Hard copies of research materials are just a partial solution.
- Yes, focus is a thing but there are probably better ways to achieve it than using something that is so suboptimal in other ways.
You can skip the first two sections of this rant entirely if you don't care about his life story or his opinions on the creative process, by the way. The product review starts over 900 words into it, in the third section. I have no reason to doubt this man is paid by the word, I bet his grocery list has an ISBN label.
This product makes no sense to me as a technical writer. So much of what I do requires "checking" what was written earlier (e.g. for notation consistency, for references, or to establish parallel structure).
In fact I seek exactly the opposite—a writing interface with as much vertical context as humanly possible, which I have found in the vertical monitor (a regular monitor that rotates 90 degrees), see the pictures in this tweet https://twitter.com/minireference/status/1508208193104666628
> I'm no engineer, but why the hell doesn't it have $30 of budget smartphone hardware inside?
Because the battery will last days with some luck instead of weeks.
Incidentally, whats wrong with any random text editor (or even a professional oriented one) in full screen mode on a laptop? Just disable the damn notifications already, they’re not good for your health.
the refresh rate on the latest kindle is pretty impressive. It has wifi and descent refresh rate as well as a usbc port.
amazon could easily add a dock that lets you turn it into a distraction free writing device. Hell they could just add some software that lets you connect it to a existing usbc keyboard for the same purpose.
You could also do this easily on that $60 laptop or any chromebook just by running an editor full-screen in kiosk mode. For some reason, this obvious answer is not preferred by anyone pursuing this bizarre line of thought.
Something like this, but that supports emacs, vi, and wordstar keybindings would I think be a pretty powerful tool for creative writers. Though as someone who writes code and non-fiction I can only speculate.
I have been thinking about building an open-source RPI Pico-based E-Ink writer for a long time. I was primarily motivated by my opinion that the Freewrite seems way more expensive than its components should cost. I also didn't like the industrial/mechanical design, and I didn't like a lot of the choices made by the company (cloud storage). I wanted a little more flexibility, such as being able to use my own keyboard. I haven't started a GitHub project page and unfortunately, I don't think I have the capability of pulling this off as a single hardware/firmware developer, so I'm putting my ideas into the ether so that maybe someone picks this up and brings it into a reality.
The webcomic "The Guy I Almost Was" put me down this path twenty plus years ago. There's a part of the story where the author daydreams about buying a typewriter at a garage sale - the same one William Gibson used to write Neuromancer - to pursue his own fantasy of becoming a beatnik novelist after nearly becoming broke, homeless, and rejected for not having the latest Apple Newton. https://www.electricsheepcomix.com/almostguy/
Writing and editing became a large part of my career in technology, but I've felt I never developed the habits of a 'good' writer and am distracted like everyone else by the Internet at my desk and my cellphone everywhere else. Several writers have talked about using old word processors to write their novels and I thought I could be one of these people. Back in 2016 my iPhone 5 screen was damaged and I didn't have the funds to fix it, so I ended up buying a Chang Jiang長江 card phone which could fit in my wallet. It was bliss, until I began 'missing out' on the social scene happening in group chats... but I still yearn for an offline, disconnected experience and continue to pursue this idea.
I call my e-ink writer 'the microWrite', 'μWrite', 'uWrite', or 'you write'. I call it this since I'd like to use micropython as the basis of the firmware/software. An e-writer was one of the first projects that came to mind when I discovered micropython. I don't think lack of USB host mode is the biggest problem; this can be overcome with an extra micro-controller. There are several options which I'll detail in this post. The major components of the MicroWrite can probably be had for less than $150, and perhaps half of this at scale and if a smaller e-ink display is used:
- An RPI Pico as the main processor module.
-- The new "w" Wi-Fi enabled version takes care of connectivity.
-- The castellated pads makes integrating the RPI Pico onto another PCB very simple.
-- The 'sleep' function of a microcontroller combined with an E-Ink displays persistent image retention when powered off seem like a perfect combination.
- An e-ink display. There are many more options on the market nowadays.
-- Pervasive Displays has a large number of options with different sizes, resolutions, and features, such as partial refresh (they even have micropython libraries for some of their product line): https://www.pervasivedisplays.com/
-- As a stop-gap solution, I thought about finding a large character LCD or VFD to test out the basic hardware concepts before diving into e-ink.
- USB host IC. Since the RPI Pico doesn't offer USB host/OTG functionality, a second controller co-processor/micro-controller allowing users to plug in their keyboard of choice. However, YouTuber Ben Eater has made a few videos explaining the complexity of USB keyboard protocols (basic/advanced), so supporting every USB keyboard could be a challenge. Luckily there is a WCH CH559-based project which allows USB to serial translation. The RPI2040 has 4 serial interfaces which could handle this input.
-- It might also be possible to use a WCH376, these are popular ways to add USB flash/SD card storage to 8-bit systems (ISA), but peripheral support hasn't emerged from the open source community.
-- Another option might be bluetooth, but I didn't investigate this that much.
- Power. This is a bit more complicated since various buck/boost converters, and battery charger ICs would be needed to supply the various voltages, handle charging, powering a keyboard, and handling "sleep". There are so many options, such as 18650 lithium or larger cells, or Nokia batteries, that this isn't a major concern.
- Storage and connectivity. There are also a lot of options for this. Millions of characters can be stored cheaply and the RPI Pico has a lot of great connectivity. I didn't like the cloud features of the Freewrite, but I suppose those could be implemented easily.
- Industrial design. 3d printing is ubiquitous and I'm sure a community of designers would design their own bespoke options to accommodate different screen sizes and layouts.
- Manufacturing. There are so many PCB manufacturing houses available now. Kicad has put schematic and layout tools into the hands of anyone willing to learn.
Software Design Considerations
There are so many software design considerations that the project becomes overwhelming.
-How many characters are "enough" to show on screen?
-Do I incorporate different font sizes?
-Do I use monospace fonts, or try to implement proportional fonts?
-Do I stick with an ASCII character-set and ASCII file-encoding, with a simple 80 column screen or do I go all out and try to implement unicode right-to-left language support for languages like Hebrew and Arabic and IME input for East Asian languages?
-How do I handle screen updates and 'keeping track' of what parts of the e-ink display need to be updated? My biggest concern from a software perspective is actually the biggest grip from the author: How would I implement the cursor/editing system and screen update routines? I came across this page which opened up a can of worms: https://lord.io/text-editing-hates-you-too/
-How do I handle the 'sleep' routines for the USB host IC, E-Ink, and the RPI2040 to conserve battery, while at the same time remaining responsive enough to the user (so that keystrokes are not lost).
Future
If all this could be solved, the microWrite could be used as a terminal device; allowing SSHing into another computer. Or maybe it could even be used to expose the python repl environment, allowing individuals to code from it. It could also be the basis of an e-reader; and maybe this is a first step to solving the challenges of displaying text.
[+] [-] kworks|3 years ago|reply
I've wasted waaay too much thought on that thing: why won't the founders just release an API like they originally promised, why did they delete the entire Freewrite forum full of many complaints right before a new model was released, why... and here I am... sucked in again, whining... publicly. Jeez.
Anyone out there thinking of buying one these things, my gentle suggestion is don't. Really just don't. I'll let you borrow all my wasted time so that you don't have to waste yours.
The most gracious thing I can say is that wasting my precious time and hard-earned cash on a Freewrite taught me a very important lesson... do not be seduced by slick marketing and a new device to solve what is at its heart a self-discipline problem.
On a positive note, it got me into exploring the dead art of writing on actual typewriters. A typewriter is a good deal more useful than a Freewrite, version control on the page for example. I can edit and rewrite with a pen. Good times.
I'm a professional screenwriter and often use a typewriter for first drafts or when I'm super stuck on something or procrastinating on a hard deadline. It's a good way to get things moving. I OCR the pages into emacs and fountain-mode to rewrite until the inevitable time comes when production needs the script in Final Draft... which is a sad moment, but so it goes.
I took an unfortunate road filled with regret that led to way of working that I love. So there's that.
[+] [-] syntheweave|3 years ago|reply
I have a decent enough digital art setup, but I really find myself drawn to traditional lately. Like, the input just isn't as good in digital for doing characterful lines. There are pretty good stylus systems now, but they have a handful of different shapes and nib frictions, the raw output is always a little bit too aliased to be satisfying, and it always ends up going into software that stabilizes it into a generic swooshy line. So you have to work at it to get something like an analog result. And most of the things you really benefit from in digital happen either at the beginning(edits to help with planning) or at the end(corrections and layered treatments).
But the two things that help the most are also there in traditional: use references, and make straight ruler lines and take measurements to help get the initial shapes in proportion. If you're mashing the undo a lot you're still wasting time that is mostly accounted for by good planning and use of technical drawing tools.
And writing really is the same way. Good command of language isn't really restricted by slow writing speed.
[+] [-] tapanjk|3 years ago|reply
I should print this quote, frame it, and put it on my desk.
[+] [-] mjrbrennan|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spoonjim|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jszymborski|3 years ago|reply
Increasingly, I've taken to outlining my work (like Xe Iaso recommends[0]) on pad and paper (helps if you have a nice pen and nice paper), and then trying to write a stream of consciousness for each section.
Then, I'll go to my text editor of choice and start forming more coherent, cogent, and discrete thoughts and arguments from the previous word salad.
All to say, I appreciate that typewriters make it really hard to revise your work while you're writing as it facilitates that draft phase. Same deal with writing in pen, you can only scratch out so much before the page becomes an ink rag.
Perhaps this implementation was sloppy in that it _only_ has this no-cursor/no-backspace mode. A physical dial could be a cool alternative ("Draft Mode", "Editing Mode")
[0] https://xeiaso.net/blog/doing-a-writing
[+] [-] desireco42|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slategruen|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quickthrower2|3 years ago|reply
Why?
Because it is basic, but it isn't actively trying to be hipster or minimal or whatever. In the case of notepad.exe it is actively despised: who has said they like notepad.exe other than in jest? And they are pretty minimal on features. All there is is you and the words that YOU will be writing.
There is no meta-thinking about the editor. No "planning the planning session to shave the yak to build the gaant chart to start the project". You just start tapping the keys.
When I need to make a note and need no friction I often open a notepad window. Later on I decide "shit I better save this!".
See also: a pencil and a piece of slightly creased cheap A4 copy paper.
[+] [-] Animats|3 years ago|reply
The era of writing on paper was backed by a large human staff of typists, rewriters, fact-checkers, editors, and Linotype operators. Everything was re-keyed several times before it reached print. It's not about nostalgia for typewriters. It's about nostalgia for servants.
[+] [-] II2II|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dietrichepp|3 years ago|reply
It had a keyboard and a three-line LCD display. It was powered by batteries, and could be connected to a computer as a keyboard via ADB. Press a button on the device, and it would send your document as a series of keypresses to the computer. I think our classroom had two of these? I'm not sure. You could take them outside and write, and then bring them back to the classroom and dump them into the computer. No software necessary.
When I try to look it up, I get results for AlphaSmart. I wonder how much they cost at the time. Sometimes you can figure that out by digging through computer catalogs on the Internet Archive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaSmart
I understand that this is a whole category of devices called "word processors", but I'm a bit too young and I never really encountered them besides the AlphaSmart (which required a computer). You can dig up old commercials for word processors on YouTube.
AT&T: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piROIAJ6Jhg
Wang: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuX-6761KTQ
[+] [-] themadturk|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dhosek|3 years ago|reply
I still do something similar now, although I use Word instead of a typewriter. I print the first draft, edit on paper and retype from scratch for a second draft. I always print that and do (at least) one more editing round afterwards. Sometimes I may do a complete retype deep into the revising practice as things become more dramatically changed.
[+] [-] caconym_|3 years ago|reply
I bought a Pomera DM30 instead, and I love it. I haven't seen it mentioned in this article or thread, so I thought I should call it out. There is no US keyboard version, but the learning curve for the Japanese layout wasn't too bad, and otherwise it's perfect: small size, e-ink screen, plaintext editor saving files to onboard flash (easily accessible with USB) or SD card. There is no pointing device, but (and I'm saying this as someone who wrote a novel in Vim) the editor provides enough commands to get around a document without too much trouble. More than anything else I think it's the screen size that discourages pathological editing-as-you-write, especially if you pick a comfortable font size.
The DM30 is a serious tool for people who want to get work done. If the idea of the Freewrite appeals to you but you feel like the Freewrite itself is bullshit, check out the DM30. It's also significantly cheaper.
edit: looks like it's discontinued, RIP: https://www.reddit.com/r/eink/comments/p5zg6s/fyi_the_kingji...
Get one while you still can...
[+] [-] jaipilot747|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrm4|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dredmorbius|3 years ago|reply
I've some sympathy as hardware is a mug's game and price competition when it does hit is absolutely brutal.
That said, the 10" and 13" displays available now are excellent, and are being found in Android tablets (sold as e-book readers, but fully general-purpose). The Onyx BOOX line for example.
Android itself is hugely limiting in numerous ways. I'd like to see actual e-ink laptops, and suspect we will before too much longer.
A quick note on power use: if the device is only used for reading reasonably static text, battery life is exceptional. Once radios, backlights, and in particular web-surfing are added to the workload, power draw really ramps up. You'll get a full day or two off a charge, but not a week or more as with reading books.
[+] [-] dietrichepp|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghaff|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gandalfff|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] II2II|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flobosg|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] devonnull|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghaff|3 years ago|reply
A few comments as someone who has done a lot of writing both pre- and post-computers.
- I am most certainly not Hemingway but you could write on a typewriter--especially inverted pyramid, newspaper style. Yes, you did compose a sentence or a paragraph mentally. And, then, between you and/or an editor there was various (literal) cutting and pasting/scratching out/etc.
- However, you get used to certain styles of doing things. These days, I mostly don't even like writing someplace I don't have Internet access because I'm accustomed to being able to check facts, look something up, etc. on the fly. Hard copies of research materials are just a partial solution.
- Yes, focus is a thing but there are probably better ways to achieve it than using something that is so suboptimal in other ways.
[+] [-] vr46|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] antonymy|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ivansavz|3 years ago|reply
In fact I seek exactly the opposite—a writing interface with as much vertical context as humanly possible, which I have found in the vertical monitor (a regular monitor that rotates 90 degrees), see the pictures in this tweet https://twitter.com/minireference/status/1508208193104666628
[+] [-] nottorp|3 years ago|reply
Because the battery will last days with some luck instead of weeks.
Incidentally, whats wrong with any random text editor (or even a professional oriented one) in full screen mode on a laptop? Just disable the damn notifications already, they’re not good for your health.
[+] [-] cultofmetatron|3 years ago|reply
amazon could easily add a dock that lets you turn it into a distraction free writing device. Hell they could just add some software that lets you connect it to a existing usbc keyboard for the same purpose.
[+] [-] myself248|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Gordonjcp|3 years ago|reply
Well there's your problem. You need Intel, NVidia, and either Windows or Linux.
[+] [-] lliamander|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dwaltrip|3 years ago|reply
P.S. This blog post was way longer than it needed to be.
[+] [-] netsharc|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joshmarinacci|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] byb|3 years ago|reply
The webcomic "The Guy I Almost Was" put me down this path twenty plus years ago. There's a part of the story where the author daydreams about buying a typewriter at a garage sale - the same one William Gibson used to write Neuromancer - to pursue his own fantasy of becoming a beatnik novelist after nearly becoming broke, homeless, and rejected for not having the latest Apple Newton. https://www.electricsheepcomix.com/almostguy/ Writing and editing became a large part of my career in technology, but I've felt I never developed the habits of a 'good' writer and am distracted like everyone else by the Internet at my desk and my cellphone everywhere else. Several writers have talked about using old word processors to write their novels and I thought I could be one of these people. Back in 2016 my iPhone 5 screen was damaged and I didn't have the funds to fix it, so I ended up buying a Chang Jiang長江 card phone which could fit in my wallet. It was bliss, until I began 'missing out' on the social scene happening in group chats... but I still yearn for an offline, disconnected experience and continue to pursue this idea.
I call my e-ink writer 'the microWrite', 'μWrite', 'uWrite', or 'you write'. I call it this since I'd like to use micropython as the basis of the firmware/software. An e-writer was one of the first projects that came to mind when I discovered micropython. I don't think lack of USB host mode is the biggest problem; this can be overcome with an extra micro-controller. There are several options which I'll detail in this post. The major components of the MicroWrite can probably be had for less than $150, and perhaps half of this at scale and if a smaller e-ink display is used:
- An RPI Pico as the main processor module.
-- The new "w" Wi-Fi enabled version takes care of connectivity.
-- The castellated pads makes integrating the RPI Pico onto another PCB very simple.
-- The 'sleep' function of a microcontroller combined with an E-Ink displays persistent image retention when powered off seem like a perfect combination.
- An e-ink display. There are many more options on the market nowadays.
-- Pervasive Displays has a large number of options with different sizes, resolutions, and features, such as partial refresh (they even have micropython libraries for some of their product line): https://www.pervasivedisplays.com/
-- As a stop-gap solution, I thought about finding a large character LCD or VFD to test out the basic hardware concepts before diving into e-ink.
- USB host IC. Since the RPI Pico doesn't offer USB host/OTG functionality, a second controller co-processor/micro-controller allowing users to plug in their keyboard of choice. However, YouTuber Ben Eater has made a few videos explaining the complexity of USB keyboard protocols (basic/advanced), so supporting every USB keyboard could be a challenge. Luckily there is a WCH CH559-based project which allows USB to serial translation. The RPI2040 has 4 serial interfaces which could handle this input.
-- https://github.com/atc1441/CH559sdccUSBHost
-- Another option is the Maxim MAX3421E (I bought a dev board for this and never opened it) https://www.maximintegrated.com/en/products/interface/contro...
-- There are more discussions about USB host on the micropython forum: https://forum.micropython.org/viewtopic.php?t=6013
-- It might also be possible to use a WCH376, these are popular ways to add USB flash/SD card storage to 8-bit systems (ISA), but peripheral support hasn't emerged from the open source community.
-- Another option might be bluetooth, but I didn't investigate this that much.
- Power. This is a bit more complicated since various buck/boost converters, and battery charger ICs would be needed to supply the various voltages, handle charging, powering a keyboard, and handling "sleep". There are so many options, such as 18650 lithium or larger cells, or Nokia batteries, that this isn't a major concern.
- Storage and connectivity. There are also a lot of options for this. Millions of characters can be stored cheaply and the RPI Pico has a lot of great connectivity. I didn't like the cloud features of the Freewrite, but I suppose those could be implemented easily.
- Industrial design. 3d printing is ubiquitous and I'm sure a community of designers would design their own bespoke options to accommodate different screen sizes and layouts.
- Manufacturing. There are so many PCB manufacturing houses available now. Kicad has put schematic and layout tools into the hands of anyone willing to learn.
Software Design Considerations
There are so many software design considerations that the project becomes overwhelming.
-How many characters are "enough" to show on screen?
-Do I incorporate different font sizes?
-Do I use monospace fonts, or try to implement proportional fonts?
-Do I stick with an ASCII character-set and ASCII file-encoding, with a simple 80 column screen or do I go all out and try to implement unicode right-to-left language support for languages like Hebrew and Arabic and IME input for East Asian languages?
-How do I handle screen updates and 'keeping track' of what parts of the e-ink display need to be updated? My biggest concern from a software perspective is actually the biggest grip from the author: How would I implement the cursor/editing system and screen update routines? I came across this page which opened up a can of worms: https://lord.io/text-editing-hates-you-too/
-How do I handle the 'sleep' routines for the USB host IC, E-Ink, and the RPI2040 to conserve battery, while at the same time remaining responsive enough to the user (so that keystrokes are not lost).
Future
If all this could be solved, the microWrite could be used as a terminal device; allowing SSHing into another computer. Or maybe it could even be used to expose the python repl environment, allowing individuals to code from it. It could also be the basis of an e-reader; and maybe this is a first step to solving the challenges of displaying text.
[+] [-] tpoacher|3 years ago|reply