Ultimate Writer: A Raspberry Pi-Based E-Ink Word Processor
As reported here, hardware hacker Ninja Trapeur gets distracted easily. While this can be helpful in some situations, when he needs to…
Hardware hacker Ninja Trappeur gets distracted easily. While this can be helpful in some situations, when he needs to complete a task that “takes more than two minutes of my attention,” this is an obvious disadvantage. For tasks that do take prolonged attention, he actually likes to use his typewriter to avoid distractions, but this presents at least two disadvantages: You can’t delete a typo, and there’s no easy way to share what you’ve written online.
To address these shortcomings, he’s developed the Ultimate Writer, a Raspberry Pi-based word processor that displays the text you’ve written on an E Ink screen. The device, which cost about $180 to build, does the job he intended it for, and looks beautiful in its wooden enclosure made out of locally-grown cypress.
While it works, he admits that there is still some work to be done. Most notably, the screen takes three seconds to refresh, making typing less enjoyable than it could be. Battery life is another disadvantage, as it clocks in at around 16 hours, less than his 20 hour goal. Once the Ultimate Writer is more refined, he hopes to sell a small batch to those that would be interested in distraction-free writing, and if you have any ideas on how improve its refresh rate, he’d love to hear from you via his contact info found here!
[h/t Liliputing]