The Android-based Onyx BOOX ebook reader supports an bluetooth keyboard. The company will sell you a reasonably decent one (it lacks function and escape keys, though Fn-` maps to esc within Termux ... sometimes) for $35.
The Termux Linux terminal and environment (https://termux.com/) is installable via F-Droid. Among the terminal schemes is an e-ink mode of dark-on-light. Font size is scalable.
Through Termux you have your choice of terminal-mode editors, including vim, emacs, nano, pico, and numerous others.
The handwriten notes feature is also quite good. Text-recognition is a bit iffy but does work.
My main reservation with this setup is that Android's memory management is fatally flawed and processes can be terminated at any time without warning. Terminal sessions really ought to be exemptable from that, but AFAIK they are not. (Please correct me if I'm wrong on this.)
Still, it's a quite good environment with nearly 1,500 packages available using the APT package tool.
Smaller current BOOX devices start at about US$250, used could likely be less than this.
Any Android or LineageOS -capable device should be able to function likewise. There are a few Linux-based devices also on the market (and yes, Kobo is one), including the reMarkable tablet (my major gripe: 16 GB storage is simply stupidly small, this supports a cabled keyboard but not AFAIU Bluetooth), and devices from Pine (in process) and possibly Purism.
Kobo's probably among the better options. It's straight-up Linux, and has e-Book functionality.
Any Android-based e-Book reader / e-ink tablet will also be able to run a bookreader. From my BOOX experience, Onyx's native bookreader (Neoreader) has some advantages in addressing the display as compared with several alternatives I've also installed (Pocketbook, FBReader, Koboreader). OTOH, Neoreader also misses some functionality, so it's a bit of a toss-up.
Pine are coming out with a tablet, it's not officially released yet, though there are some developer / reviewer units that are getting shipped. Its specs look pretty good (many tablets are shortchanged on storage especially).
reMarkable is another native-Linux device. It can take a keyboard and software is installable (also via APT AFAIU). Lars Wirzenius of Linux fame has a good review.
There are several e-book reader / e-ink subreddits which are the best general forums for more information that I'm aware of.
If you wind up going the iPad route, I'd recommend looking into running Linux on a Surface. Older Surface's with better-than-iPad specs can be had used for cheap, and they run most distros extremely well. I'm using a Surface Pro 3 with PopOS right now and it's the most powerful tablet experience I've ever had, and it was cheaper than an iPad.
Eventually I think Remarkable will release a keyboard. It has a connection port on the edge that is currently unused. They haven't announced anything AFAIK so it wouldn't be for a while.
Frustratingly, presumably because they are thinking about that possible accessory, they also designed the USB-C port in what has to be a completely noncompliant way so as to keep any keyboards (or most anything else potentially useful) from working, apparently at a hardware level. Attaching one requires making a connector for the non-standard USB connector on the side.
There's something oddly hostile about e-ink device companies.
> they also designed the USB-C port in what has to be a completely noncompliant way so as to keep any keyboards (or most anything else potentially useful) from working
I'm curious what that means. Is it a USB-C certified port? If it is certified and has USB host or USB-OTG on the logos, then it better work otherwise they'd fail compliance testing. If on the other hand it is just a USB-C connector for charging and for client mode, then that's normal. Most low end devices don't have a USB host controller and therefore can only be a USB client (like a thumbdrive) and thus can't connect to another USB client like a USB keyboard.
> There's something oddly hostile about e-ink device companies.
What are "e-ink device companies"? You mean like Amazon? Are they hostile?
Remarkable lists "Wi-Fi / USB-C / Accessory port" under "Connectivity" for the Remarkable 2, and "USB C connectivity for fast file transfer and charging" in its comparison. The device also does have the necessary hardware to be capable of acting as host, and connecting keyboards.
But of course, Remarkable don't actually state that the port is certified, and so it turns out that it doesn't behave at all in the way a normal person might expect.
File transfer is implemented, not via any usual method, but by having the device act as a network adapter, and having a web interface accessible at a fixed IP address, behind a setting that seems to reset itself to Off at various times.
While the port would support OTG, Remarkable has added a kernel module that, amongst other things, breaks the detection and switching needed for that to work automatically. You can configure it manually, in which case the port won't provide power, though a keyboard with a Y-adapter will work.
However, next to the USB-C port, there isa a set of five exposed contacts that appears designed for a magnetic attachment, and Remarkable notes that it's there to support potential future accessories. People investigating them have found that it's a USB interface. It supports OTG, will provide power, and can have a keyboard attached.
On the Remarkable 1, which doesn't have the accessory connection, and thus doesn't have the potential for future products, keyboards can apparently just be attached to the USB port.
>What are "e-ink device companies"?
Remarkable / Onyx / etc: companies that are built around e-ink devices.
> While the port would support OTG, Remarkable has added a kernel module that,
Remarkable is open source isn't it? The CEO posts regularly on HN. If that were true, wouldn't you just go in and disable the insmod/modprobe of that module?
> What are "e-ink device companies"? You mean like Amazon? Are they hostile?
Not a GP but I have been doing some research on which ereader / note taker to buy lately and although I wouldn’t call it hostile, there is definitely a pattern.
Most eink devices run some modified walled-of modifications of Android.
Most eink devices don’t support USB keyboards (for example, just something I am interested in), and even if they unofficially do, the companies would flat out deny it for some reason (Boox).
Seems like every device has it’s own perspective on how to export / import documents and content
> Most eink devices run some modified walled-of modifications of Android.
That's not that surprising is it? Doesn't regular Android have a lot of stuff that would break eink displays since they can't update like LCD?
> Most eink devices don’t support USB keyboards (for example, just something I am interested in), and even if they unofficially do, the companies would flat out deny it for some reason (Boox).
Sounds nasty. Any link to further details about what you're saying? Is it just a simple missing USB host capability or are they actively preventing people from using USB host somehow in software?
> Sounds nasty. Any link to further details about what you're saying?
I emailed Boox support if Boox Nova Air that just came out supports USB keyboard and got a one-liner response that their products to not support getting connected to USB keyboards.
I think the sibling commenter that mentions that they may just want to get rid of support requests is close to truth. I think Remarkable did actually make some design decisions that don't allow to just use USB keyboard (you actually need some aftermarket cable if you want to hack it together). No idea why (once you get the cable the keyboard apparently works).
Maybe these companies just really believe in the screen + pen paradigm.
> don’t support USB keyboards … and even if they unofficially do, the companies … deny it for some reason
Perhaps they don't want to deal with support calls for “my keyboard isn't working” or “the keyboard mapping is odd for [insert HCI device here]” or similar, and have decided that simply saying “we don't support USB keyboards” is not sufficient to ward that off.
> My main reservation with this setup is that Android's memory management is fatally flawed and processes can be terminated at any time without warning.
It's unbelievable, Would we allow this behavior on desktop OS? Mobile operating systems seems to have taken the worst features from typical computer and embedded systems. But who dare question the Duopoly.
I just had rant about this the other day with reg Google Clock not functioning and people loosing jobs because of it[1].
> > My main reservation with this setup is that Android's memory management is fatally flawed and processes can be terminated at any time without warning.
>
> It's unbelievable, Would we allow this behavior on desktop OS? Mobile operating systems seems to have taken the worst features from typical computer and embedded systems. But who dare question the Duopoly.
That... is actually a feature of the Linux Kernel. How else would you handle the exhaustion of physical + swap memory or file descriptors, etc.?
I agree, While the overzealous app killing in the name of preserving power i.e. battery is not the fault of Linux kernel alone[1] as I've mentioned in the linked thread in my original comment one of the things we gain by switching to an aftermarket android ROM is predictable app behavior.
iOS does this too. It works fine. The trick is to not kill the alarm service (which Android shouldn't do either, given that's never the thing chewing up resources).
The Dasung not-eReader runs full blown Android and you can connect just about anything thanks to a USB C port and Bluetooth support. A recent review showed even Google Play support https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9QVCRed9lY mine is an older 7.8" model with Google Play Services running but not the store itself. I guess with the services on, I could sideload the Play Store easily...
The Barnes & Noble Nooks also need just a launcher installed and then they'll run most Android apps (that don't require missing hardware). I use one daily for studying with Ankidroid.
I use a 6" Nook but they have an 8" version that is just as easy to set up additional apps on.
Oh yes, I also had a couple of such design - used an app or a server, ssh connection or simple websockets. But for this one I really wanted it to work standalone !
I write science fiction and also work in technology. My days are spent glued to a screen so much that it's hard to want to write on my computer when I have time to write. So I do everything longhand, then wait for long weekends to translate things from my notebook into a word processor. I wish I could do my drafts on my computer; I used to be able to work all day and night in front of a screen, but lately I've been realizing that I'm a lot less anxious overall when I (try to) stop interacting with computers after a certain time.
One thing I've been thinking about is having a computer hooked up to a rudimentary word processor app on my kindle. The kindle's display doesn't bother me after I'm done working on screens. It feels different enough that it doesn't interrupt my reading, so I've posited that I would be okay writing on one.
I'm excited to see technology like this come out, and I'm excited to see how this little industry grows.
Great to hear that I'm not the only one. After working all day in front of a screen I just can't get motivated to spend my night in front of a computer so I end up doing a lot of planning and note-taking but not enough drafting.
I have recently bought a Onyx BOOX Nova which I plan to use via a bluetooth keyboard when it arrives. I had the exact same thought regarding e-ink displays since I read a lot using a kindle after work.
> a computer hooked up to a rudimentary word processor app on my
You just need an Android tablet with EPD display and a decent word processor.
If you do not want full formatting - so, you are contented with typewriter like rendering -, there must be abundance of software application. If you want proper typographical paragraph formatting, with e.g. full text justification and spacing etc., there are a few usable applications. (As written in anther post, in the end, to have an application with all the features I wanted, I wrote it directly.)
You could also try to track down an old CRT serial terminal; they have very sharp monochrome displays and I find that the dark background with amber/green/white phosphor is very easy on the eyes.
It's also more difficult to get distracted while using a real terminal, because of its inherent limitations as a textual output device.
The writing tables that appeared in the past years: reMarkable, Onyx, Kobo Elipsa, etc, support this use case very well. They have handwriting recognition that you can use to convert to documents to plain textm and which require a little less work than having to do transcribe it fully.
AlphaSmarts are certainly intriguing devices - but flawed in many ways. Most notably, all models' internal storage was non-persistent. If your batteries died, poof, everything gone.
The LCDs simply do not lend themselves to the same amazing outdoor visibility as modern e-ink displays.
The only way to get your words off is to connect the device over USB to a receiving computer and "send" the text one letter at a time. To be fair it's fairly cool to see the AlphaSmart emulate itself as a keyboard device to Windows and shoot text over faster than any human could ever type, but it's still incredibly slow, can take minutes at a time to transfer single documents.
I own an AlphaSmart Dana - one of the last devices they ever made - and it suffers from many of these issues far worse. It ran a slightly customized version of PalmOS, so it slurped up batteries like nothing, still had non-persistent internal storage, did include an SD card slot but its own writing software saved files in a proprietary format you couldn't open on any computer, so you still had to use the USB keyboard method...
The AlphaSmart devices were made to teach little kids how to type, and not much more. And that is very clear.
I have an AlphaSmart 3000 and it's not all that bad if you think of it as a keyboard that you can use away from your computer.
Yes, the transfer speeds are slow. On the other hand you can pull up any program that accepts keyboard input on your computer, plug it in, and hit send. You are not messing around with files are proprietary software to transfer those files.
It also takes a lot more than the batteries to die to lose your data. Like many older devices, it has a backup battery to maintain the contents of memory. Both the main batteries and the backup batteries have to be dead to lose data, which is tricky to do since the device will only run from the main batteries.
That said, the editor is very primitive and it is awkward to navigate by word and line alone while editing documents.
> Yes, the transfer speeds are slow. On the other hand you can pull up any program that accepts keyboard input on your computer, plug it in, and hit send. You are not messing around with files are proprietary software to transfer those files.
USB mass storage would have been a good idea then, and today either MTP or mass storage are much better options.
One of the interesting features of the AlphaSmart 3000 is the ability to connect to a fairly broad range of personal computers. This includes computers from the IBM AT onward, Macintosh Plus onward, and Apple IIgs. In other words, it supports the ADB, AT, PS/2, and USB interfaces.
On top of that, USB Mass Storage support was first built into Mac OS 9 and Windows 2000. The former was about 3 months prior to the AlphaSmart 3000 release and the latter was around the time of AlphaSmart 3000 release.
In other words, short of providing their own driver or software to transfer data, the only means transferring data was by pushing it through a keyboard interface. This may have been acceptable, but undesirable, for home users. Keep in mind, it would have traded ease of use for speed. It would have been less desirable in the education market since it would have meant managing additional software on classroom computers while being more difficult to use.
On top of that, there may have been technical reasons. It looks like it is using a PDIUSBD11D USB controller, connected to a DragonBall EZ microcontroller via an I2C bus. Perhaps someone with more knowledge in this domain can comment on that aspect.
I keep trying to find a dream writer 200 so that I can save my files to a floppy disk but they have not appeared on eBay yet. So I continue to try to mount a tiny screen to a Raspberry Pi zero and the amount that inside a model m keyboard
The Pomera DM30 is another option for anybody who wants something superficially very similar to OP's setup but without the DIY aspect. It's kind of expensive and only comes in a Japanese keyboard layout, but I love mine.
I link to this Pomera device from the repo, as well as Freewrite's one. I would have totally bought the Pomera if I could change keyboard layout. As I do most of my creative writing in French I absolutely need an AZERTY keyboard.
Thanks for this repo :)
I also writes in French, but decided to switch to Qwerty layout a while back to get access to a wide-range of nice keyboard. Very happy with this move.
I know this will not help you right now, but just saying you may not totally stuck to AZERTY forever.
Lately I've been dreaming of building a credit-card sized computer (thickness included) using a e-ink display and ultrathin battery. I haven't found a good purpose for it though.
I recently received my freewrite traveler and I love this device, I've been wanting something like this for years now and I could finally afford it.
If you're taken aback by the steep price tag: from my understanding that's a combination of small volume and the patent situation with e-ink which has been holding the technology back. Seriously, I'm very frustrated with that; essentially these things haven't gotten all that much better (in general, not talking about volume customers like amazon) than the first time I read about them in what, 2005?
Nice, but for actual use, there are more straightforward setups:
I spend hours per day in front of an Onyx Max2 (13.3'' E-Ink + Android) landscape on a full sized BT keyboard with a long slot to accommodate big tablets, and I use a full fledged word processor.
The catch is, I was dissatisfied with all word processors available for Android, so I wrote mine (and I get rich text in full book-like formatting with optimized use of the screen).
Sorry for the half reply (I cannot check it physically right now): if you search for "BT keyboard with slot" in the images section of a search engine (DDG), a few similar to mine will come out: I have the one with the mousepad in the bottom-right corner. I believe that the manufacturers distribute the product for different brands (so, for example, I see "Hot-sale-keyboard-bluetooth-touchpad" on Alibaba, or a "Texet Bluetooth Keyboard Touchpad BTK SLOT").
BTW: battery life is never a problem. The rare events in which I find myself with the red light blinking, I just hook up a portable power bank.
Not the poster, but this is the one I got, works well, though it definitely can't compare to a mechanical keyboard: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MUTWLW4
Logitech K480 bluetooth.
Unfortunately I can't recommend boox anymore, a tiny crack appeared on my note air pretty much where my thumb goes when holding it and spread across the entire display; warranty was useless of course.
Thank you. I am familiar with the K480, but it can only accommodate tablets up to 10" wide; was hoping to find out what model mdp2021 found to accommodate up to a 13.3" tablet.
Yes because Apple invented the modular technology of a separate keyboard and portable computer... /s
> trying to recreate a more perfect Apple Newton with the external keyboard option
I wasn't alive when that was produced, does that mean I am trying to recreate something I don't know about?
I think I get it though, it sounds like it was a product you liked. Excuse the above sarcasm, i just get frustrated that this whole 'repurposing black box tech' is a even thing and I wish we lived in the modular open source and anticapitalist/socialist world of tomorrow, today.
Years ago I had an old Apple eMate 300 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMate_300. It was surprisingly good! I wrote a lot on it, and it was even able to print wirelessly via IR. They put a ton of features into it, surprising for an education-centric device. It was the OLPC before OLPC was a gleam in anyone’s eye.
It's a bit the same here - the kobo is still a normal functioning Kobo. Only the kernel has to change to allow USB OTG mode, and you can switch between custom and stock one. By the way, the libs I used here works on remarkable too, so it's just a matter of compiling the software and finding a matching kernel.
Yeah, they sucked, you couldn't fix your mistakes, let alone insert a sentence just before another, or, god forbid, move a whole section of your text. Plus, you only had one copy of your text, you had to retype all of it if you wanted to make a copy. And entirely retype it another time into another hardware device if you wanted to do any formatting at all.
I'm glad we have better options nowadays.
Good fitness machines though, because you better have strong fingers to type all day long with these devices.
Those are typewritters (and manual ones at that, if there is any issue with your fingers), op was talking about word processors, which have almost exactly none of the issues you mentioned.
yes, those were common in college in the early '90's, I wouldn't be surprised if they could be found and refurbished. I think Brother was one of the more popular brands.
I wish the README had a description of the mounting bracket, and of the editor (i.e. is it based on an existing editor). Relatedly, are there console based editors that focus on writing prose? What about setups for the more popular editors built for code?
The mounting is indeed a PLA 3d printed stand built in 5 minute in thinkerCAD. The editor is the object of the program it's homemade and pretty basic (and I wanted it basic). I should add a video at some point.
The mounting bracket seems to be a 5-minute design that was then 3D-printed. If you don't have a printer, I imagine someone at your local Makerspace would be more than happy to help in exchange for pizza.
It's pretty reactive, as the screen only refreshes the chars that have changed on the matrix at each key stroke. Even a page up/down that changes all the screen is very fast. I only do full refresh with flashing when using the menu so some ghosting may appear, but I haven't experienced it.
Nice project. I recently achieved my e-ink typewriter dream with an Onyx Boox paired with a Jelly Comb keyboard. More expensive than using an old Kobo but pretty flexible.
Cool! I'm eager to see your review of in this context! Would you kindly add a follow-up to this comment and share either your experience in brief or a link to an actual review you would probably write please?
I am using Obsidian as well and I am considering using an Android eInk tablet (Like a Boox), with a keyboard to be able to use Obsidian.
I may give it a try it some day.
... Look, I get it, this device was funded over Kickstarter, it's incredibly niche with small production runs and a lot of custom designed pieces, and it simply can't benefit from the economies of scale that devices from bigger companies get...
But there is just no way on this earth I could ever justify paying $600 USD for what amounts to an e-ink display strapped to a Cherry MX keyboard.
It's really too bad that (last I checked) the Freewrite is permanently shackled to their weird proprietary cloud service. I guess there is a way to pull documents off it with USB, but you (apparently) can't add, remove, or generally organize files that way.
I got a Pomera DM30 instead, which just appears as a USB drive mirroring the device's filesystem. It's a Japanese keyboard layout, but the English support is fine, and overall I love it.
I'm not aware of any directly comparable non-DIY devices. There are a few other "electronic typewriter" devices that usually come up in these discussions, like the Alphasmart range and the Freewrite, but the DM30 checks more of my boxes.
> And is it actually that small that you can put it in your pocket?
I (a man who wears men's clothes with generally usable pockets) can fit it in a pocket, but not very comfortably. It has a footprint similar to a basic e-reader, but it's thicker, I'd guess an inch and change.
> Which document formats does it save to?
It just saves to plain text, which is perfect for me since I write in Markdown. The editor uses a (sort of ugly) monospace font and has some simple but useful navigation commands.
Thank you, I actually went ahead and bought a DM30 last night. Seems like it could be the perfect thing to take for an outside writing. session. Yes the screen could have been somewhat bigger, but then it would absolutely require an iPad-sized bag.
Hi, sorry to bother you, but I got the Pomera DM30 and can't seem to figure how to disable the Japanese substitution for the text. Every time I enter English text and add a punctuation mark everything changes to Japanese. I have switched the interface to English, that was pretty straightforward.
I bought an eink display once, thinking to use it for text editing, but returned it the second day. There is nothing paper like when it comes to typing.
The Termux Linux terminal and environment (https://termux.com/) is installable via F-Droid. Among the terminal schemes is an e-ink mode of dark-on-light. Font size is scalable.
Through Termux you have your choice of terminal-mode editors, including vim, emacs, nano, pico, and numerous others.
The handwriten notes feature is also quite good. Text-recognition is a bit iffy but does work.
My main reservation with this setup is that Android's memory management is fatally flawed and processes can be terminated at any time without warning. Terminal sessions really ought to be exemptable from that, but AFAIK they are not. (Please correct me if I'm wrong on this.)
Still, it's a quite good environment with nearly 1,500 packages available using the APT package tool.
Smaller current BOOX devices start at about US$250, used could likely be less than this.
Any Android or LineageOS -capable device should be able to function likewise. There are a few Linux-based devices also on the market (and yes, Kobo is one), including the reMarkable tablet (my major gripe: 16 GB storage is simply stupidly small, this supports a cabled keyboard but not AFAIU Bluetooth), and devices from Pine (in process) and possibly Purism.
A longer review of the Onyx BOOX here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27521248