[HN Gopher] Show HN: A VNC viewer for eInk devices capable of 30...
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Show HN: A VNC viewer for eInk devices capable of 30 FPS when
writing text
Author : dailyanchovy
Score : 224 points
Date : 2022-08-13 13:49 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (zmarshall.nl)
(TXT) w3m dump (zmarshall.nl)
| dailyanchovy wrote:
| Off-topic comment ahead.
|
| I'm trying to reconnect with my sister with whom I lost contact
| while we were kids. I link to this page containing both our names
| and a way to contact me, for search engines and archives to
| index: https://zmarshall.nl/static/orian-marshall.html .
|
| Orian (Oriyan / Oryan, Marshall), if you're reading this, please
| get in touch.
|
| Max
| upwardbound wrote:
| For anyone downvoting this: The person who wrote this comment
| is the same person who created the e-ink project. If they might
| have created a popular project partly in an attempt to get
| enough visibility that their sister might see it, it's really
| cruel for you to downvote them.
|
| @Max, have you considered hiring a private investigator? I have
| no idea if that works in real life like it does in fiction but
| maybe it's a possible route?
|
| Another thing you might be able to try is to access public
| records starting from the time when you were children and
| working forward through time to today. In some cases the public
| records might be accessible through legal requests (whatever is
| the Israeli equivalent of FOIA or something like that), or if
| you are willing to do whatever it takes you could try asking
| favors of government workers or even try to get someone who's a
| gray hat to try to obtain the records on your behalf. If your
| sister wants to reconnect then a gray hat method of obtaining
| records should in my view still be considered the right & moral
| thing to do. If anything, part of what I believe the private
| investigators do (at least the good ones) is provide plausible
| deniability by using gray methods or hiring those who do, for
| you, without ever saying so.
|
| If you're really dedicated, you could even apply for a job at
| the relevant government agency and look up the records yourself
| once you work in that job.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > If you're really dedicated, you could even apply for a job
| at the relevant government agency and look up the records
| yourself once you work in that job.
|
| That is going to get you fired at the least and serious
| criminal charges at the worst, pretty almost everywhere.
|
| Do not ever, I repeat _ever_ , abuse any kind of database
| access you have for personal stuff unless approved by
| whomever you are reporting to and allowed by law.
| upwardbound wrote:
| I agree. It's a question of how much finding his sister
| means to him. We don't know his story, and maybe he'd be
| willing to spend some time in jail and lose his career if
| it meant the chance to find her.
| [deleted]
| dheera wrote:
| I'd love to see someone crack the partial fast update modes of
| the Boox tablets.
|
| They run Android apps, but only the included, closed-source apps
| like the note-taking app and browser get fast screen updates at
| high quality. If you try to install a third-party note-taking app
| the experience is crap.
| Jolter wrote:
| Check out what Zubersoft has done with their sheet music app,
| in a special edition for e-ink.
|
| https://zubersoft.com/mobilesheets/forum/archive/index.php?t...
|
| The kicker is this: "- Freeform annotations with the stylus
| utilize special rendering on Boox devices allowing the drawings
| to show up in real time. This makes it much easier to write and
| draw."
|
| I use this app on a Boox Max Lumi and the effect is very
| pronounced. It really doesn't have any noticeable delay, just
| like the "native" Boox apps.
|
| So, I think someone did indeed crack the code for fast
| updating.
| TrinaryWorksToo wrote:
| Can you not use ADB to download the APK off the app and reverse
| engineer anything anomalous?
| muhehe wrote:
| Maybe the apps are completely normal, but whitelisted
| somewhere in the system for different behaviour. Like some
| phone manufacturers cheat at benchmarks...
| Sparkle-san wrote:
| Imagine where electronic ink displays could be today if E Ink
| wasn't such a terrible steward of the initial technology.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| I'd say you might get your wish in about five years, after
| present patents expire. There will doubtless be new
| developments, but present devices are absolutely sufficient for
| e-book reading and most web surfing / tablet tasks, even at
| monochrome and modest 0.5 -- 16 Hz refresh or so. Higher-
| quality display is slower to refresh, though almost all
| instances are well under sub-second.
|
| Colour displays are slower as I understand.
| tpmx wrote:
| We really should shorten patent lifespans to like 10 years.
| And like 5 (or 0) years for pure software patents.
|
| Things are moving faster these days, with the interwebs and
| all.
| Retric wrote:
| It's less of a problem with how long patients last, instead
| it's the ease and scope of patents granted.
| tpmx wrote:
| The former parameter (how long the patents last) is
| dramatically easier to define in law than the scope.
| nmstoker wrote:
| Yes, 20 years in the modern world is far too long given
| that the pace of change is dramatically faster than it was
| when 20 years seems reasonable. It would motivate patent
| holders in their efforts to get the most from a patent, as
| many sit far too comfortably bidding their time which
| defeats the public good purpose behind patents
| dleslie wrote:
| Are you referring to the patent encumbered display tech found
| in the olpc laptops?
|
| Because those were simply phenomenal. I have two and I've
| never had a display quite their equal in direct sunlight.
| [deleted]
| makobado wrote:
| otras wrote:
| Wow, this is great! I've been hoping for eInk with good refresh
| for years, and seeing it in action in your demo is very cool.
|
| > The screen can refresh up to 30 times per second, this will
| degrade the eInk display rapidly. Do not use with fast changing
| content like videos.
|
| Have you noticed the degraded display in your Kobo? I imagine
| it's not uniform across all pixels, since editing would mostly be
| localized to your cursor area (though scrolling and other actions
| would be wider). I'd also be interested in hearing what the
| timeline looked like for the quality drop, since it sounds like
| it's a function of the total number refreshes for each pixel.
| ernesth wrote:
| I thought 11 years ago that e-ink with good refresh was
| achieved, seeing bookeen's prototype display videos and full
| screen scrolling.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24srQXX81Oc
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxwceUvxlCo
|
| But all e-ink devices I have seen since were slow and would
| form time to time show remanence.
| dailyanchovy wrote:
| Thank you :)
|
| I haven't noticed any degradation, but I put the warning up
| just in case. There is research suggesting that the ink "drops"
| stick together or break up after so many refreshes.
|
| You can quickly skim this page for more info (the title should
| be findable on libgen):
| sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0030399217315487
| jack_riminton wrote:
| Nice work. I'd really miss colours though, e.g. code linting and
| bracket colouring
| dailyanchovy wrote:
| There is a lot of room to play with there, I code monochrome on
| colour displays too.
|
| Try experimenting with font weight, italics, and combinations.
| I find that less distracting.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Nice. I wish I could put this on my Kindle
| jvik wrote:
| What is your use case?
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I don't know.. But I have several old kindles laying around
| :)
|
| Would be a nice console or something.
|
| In fact I'd love a laptop with eInk which I could use
| outdoors in the sun.
| cassepipe wrote:
| What are the current market options for e-ink /displays/devices
| that you could program on/ that you know of and (don't?)
| recommend ?
| celie56 wrote:
| I personally use a Remarkable 1 with yaft (1) as a terminal. I
| connect via ssh to a tmux session for editing and the response
| is fast enough.
|
| 1. https://github.com/timower/rM2-stuff/tree/master/apps/yaft
| LeSaucy wrote:
| Don't let the .cpp file extensions fool you, its c.
| wanghq wrote:
| I got a Boox note air 2. It's an e-ink device/android
| tablet/e-reader/note-taking.
|
| You can install any app on this device. I find it's acceptable
| to code with web-ides like replit.com. But my main usage is
| reading and note taking.
| dmos62 wrote:
| Here's my notes on the subject: - hisense q5
| tablet - hdmi input - https://www.cect-
| shop.com/en/hisense-q5.html - 400 eur -
| android as usb display: - https://superdisplay.app/
| - waveshare - https://www.waveshare.com/product/displ
| ays/e-paper/epaper-1.htm?___SID=U&dir=desc&mode=list&order=pric
| e - pure hdmi, usb powered - 400-600eur
| - papertty - python library - streams
| terminal or vnc to raspberry pi connected SPI waveshare monitor
| rjsw wrote:
| There is the PineNote [1], don't have one but do have the
| equivalent SBC.
|
| [1] https://www.pine64.org/pinenote/
| dredmorbius wrote:
| An interesting test case would be the aalib demo, bb:
|
| https://sarata.com/manpages/bb.1.html
|
| Here videoed off an emissive display:
| https://yewtu.be/watch?v=WubDqdV2r9k
|
| And what seems to be a direct screen capture:
| https://yewtu.be/watch?v=JFFJYJ6QkME
|
| I'm also curious as to what display damage high-speed refresh
| causes, and what reasonable guidelines at avoiding this might be.
| I have an Onyx BOOX Max Lumi, whose display is excellent, and do
| _very occasionally_ watch video. (More often I 'll simply play
| the audio via mpv in Termux.)
| dailyanchovy wrote:
| The pixels are classical mechanical, as opposed to LEDs
| (electrical) or other solid state devices.
|
| The particles in a pixel could deform/burst or clamp together
| over time, as they move around. Both scenarios lead to
| decreased contrast.
|
| The less they move the longer the screen will last. I've no
| experience with the manufacture of those displays but I reason
| with physics.
| alpb wrote:
| Is the notable delay between keyboard sounds and video rendering
| due to the SSH/software?
| IshKebab wrote:
| Later he writes a comment saying is due to network latency.
| Seems a bit dubious if you ask me though.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Seems legit to me.
|
| Using an Onyx BOOX with Termux, terminal lag is not
| perceptible. The lagged updates look like packet jitter to
| me.
| the8472 wrote:
| Could be the classic nagle / delayed ack interaction. Or
| shoddy wifi.
| dailyanchovy wrote:
| I measured and split the latency between the main tasks of a
| single frame draw.
|
| The main culprit was network delay as I am transmitting raw
| pixels (one u8 per pixel) compressed with zlib. That's a hit
| of ~140ms for half a screen.
|
| Next in line is the screen refresh (unmeasured, perceived).
|
| Then the optional post processing (~20ms for half a screen),
| and housekeeping, like keeping track of dirty regions (about
| as long).
|
| Lastly writing to the framebuffer (less than 20ms, I don't
| remember exactly how long).
|
| I took great care to optimise the process, and my next step
| was to transmit multiple pixels as a single u8 int, the
| physical display cannot render 255 distinct shades of gray.
| dailyanchovy wrote:
| P.S. parent was right in doubting the claim, as a parallel
| connection from a client on a regular desktop refreshes at
| 30 HZ regardless of the size of the update.
|
| The explanation is that I take end-to-end network
| measurements (from request of update to a full buffer of
| pixel bytes). That delay might be due to the slow processor
| on device, or an inefficiency in the networking code in my
| application.
| oblak wrote:
| Oh, this is great. I love my Kobo Libra 2 mostly due to its form
| factor and weight and have been thinking of using it for
| something more. Hard to believe the thing can do full scan text
| refresh 30 at fps, though. Probably not updating everything at
| once?
|
| Also, I did not know eink degradation due to normal use - as
| opposed to sitting on your beloved device :( - was a thing, even
| at high fps.
| dailyanchovy wrote:
| The degradation is speculation on my part. I haven't ever
| experienced it.
|
| Yes, the 30 fps rate is for small updates. A full screen update
| (scrolling) is commonly less than ~200 ms, and there are still
| ways to bring that number down.
|
| I agree, the Libra 2 is great :) Try koreader, it's noticeably
| faster than the stock reader application.
| dailyanchovy wrote:
| For people who cannot visit the website (hug of death), a copy is
| hosted here: https://github.com/everydayanchovies/eink-vnc
| pca006132 wrote:
| Impressive! Just wondering, can this work with ssh? Using VNC for
| text based application sounds a bit overkill.
| Sakos wrote:
| One of these days I'm gonna make something this cool I can show
| HN.
| user3939382 wrote:
| I'm trying to get xdebug working on AWS ECS... do you think
| that will qualify?
| redahahaha wrote:
| redahahaha wrote:
| radarsat1 wrote:
| Exactly what I've been wanting to do, use it as a display for
| emacs with a bluetooth keyboard. Don't mind if it has to pass
| through my laptop. Does anyone know how to do something similar
| with the reMarkable 2?
| jfim wrote:
| There's https://github.com/matteodelabre/vnsee if you want to
| use VNC as a client on your remarkable. I've used it in the
| past to run Chromium on a server and display it on the
| reMarkable: https://photos.app.goo.gl/TnNE1tdzvrwphJ8N6
| m4lvin wrote:
| I did this once, with a shared terminal via screen or tmux (and
| thus not VNC). You can install https://github.com/Eeems-
| Org/oxide and a terminal application via the toltec repoitories
| and then ssh (or mosh) from remarkable to the device that has
| the keyboard.
| FullyFunctional wrote:
| This is great, looks totally usable.
|
| I've pursued that eInk life style for about a decade now :) My
| best setup is with a Dasung Paperlike, but in practice the
| ergonomics keeps me from using it often (too many things to carry
| outside and setup). What I hope to see one day is a Linux
| friendly laptop with an eInk display (frontlit for extra bonus
| [1]). I wouldn't use it as a replacement, but for quickly
| grabbing when spending a few hours outside. Maybe Framework or
| MNT Reform could do it?
|
| [1] the Dasung has multiple settings for the backlight and it's
| an absolute necessity for using it indoors.
|
| EDIT: backlit -> frontlit, silly me.
|
| ADD: PineNote is also promising as it support BLE and thus could
| be used with remote keyboard/mouse.
| Jolter wrote:
| Maybe you're aware but the Boox Max Lumi has an HDMI In port,
| so you can use it as a secondary monitor for that laptop.
|
| https://shop.boox.com/products/maxlumi
| FullyFunctional wrote:
| My Dasung Paperlike is a monitor also. In practice it's not a
| great solution for me compared to laptop (self-contained,
| batteries included). An external monitor (incl. the Boox) is
| quite impractical to lug around and set up.
| phonethrowaway wrote:
| I'm so excited for this:
| https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bigme/bigme-worlds-firs...
|
| Basic color support for syntax highlighting is what I've been
| waiting for...
| nh2 wrote:
| It looks interesting, is there some information that describes
| whether this runs an upstream Linux kernel without version-
| locked binary blobs?
|
| It says it runs Android, and thus the above makes the
| difference on whether I one rely on 2 years of updates or 20
| years of updates.
| roperzh wrote:
| I wanted to give it a try since I have a Kobo laying around but
| seems like TightVNC is Windows-only.
| spindle wrote:
| It's in nixpkgs (for MacOS and Linux). I haven't tested it
| because it's flagged as having a security vulnerability
| (actually that's an excuse - it's really because I'm busy) but
| it should work.
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(page generated 2022-08-13 23:00 UTC)