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How to build a printer

122 points4 hoursnishantjosh.dev
ks20481 hour ago

Good job, but I’m left wanting to know how to build a printer.

cat-whisperer1 hour ago

I'd say it's an eco-friendly printer

jarboot2 hours ago

This is amazing!!! It just makes sense. And its just how you would want to use a e reader.

cat-whisperer2 hours ago

if it looks like a paper, it should act like a paper

nomel2 hours ago

You can even fold it, once!

cat-whisperer1 hour ago

It's also not effective against rock

+1
valleyer1 hour ago
greazy1 hour ago

I don't understand the purpose. What am I missing?

The author "prints" to the eink display. Why not load say the pdf directly?

cat-whisperer1 hour ago

> I was thinking of this, but rendering PDF takes a lot out of a 400KB RAM'd device. It also needs a ton of things to actually work which the ROM can't hold.

> Kindles have a ton of RAM, this one didn't.

stdatomic57 minutes ago

From the 4th line in the article:

> But getting stuff onto it was tedious. I had to join its hotspot and open a little upload website in my browser. Yuck.

Anyway, very creative, I like the idea a lot.

joshmarinacci1 hour ago

I love the concept, but I wonder why he wasn’t printing to PDF. Can this device not render PDFs?

cat-whisperer1 hour ago

I was thinking of this, but rendering PDF takes a lot out of a 400KB RAM'd device. It also needs a ton of things to actually work which the ROM can't hold.

Kindles have a ton of RAM, this one didn't.

bluGill1 hour ago

Probably not. It doesn't appear to have enough ram. I'm not sure the CPU is up to that either.

NDlurker57 minutes ago

Very cool. I'll be updating to this fork

cat-whisperer49 minutes ago

Thanks. It's rough around the edges, so PRs are open, and there's a recipe in the repo if you want to build your own apps.

sho_hn2 hours ago

This is a fantastic idea!

andyfilms12 hours ago

We finally have PADDs from Star Trek!

cat-whisperer2 hours ago

Wow!! I didn't think of that.

stavros2 hours ago

I've been seeing the Xteink a lot lately. Should I get an X3 or an X4? I don't really know why I want it, but I have an eInk addiction, so I just need it.

hamaluik35 minutes ago

I bought an x4 a month or so ago, zero regrets. It sounds hyperbolic but it’s finally been the thing to actually decouple me from my phone. Whenever I’m out and about, bored, I just slide it out and pick up where I left off reading last. It’s a nicer reading experience on my kobo but the portability and.. frankly charm just can’t be beat.

a2dam2 hours ago

I've owned all of them and the answer is the X4 Pro IMO. It has a backlight, which is the only thing I really missed on the others.

cat-whisperer2 hours ago

It's funny that X3 is a successor of X4. Only downside is that X4 has a USB-C port and X3 doesn't

stavros1 hour ago

What about the back light? Are they otherwise identical?

cat-whisperer1 hour ago

X3 isn't backlit, but the battery lasts 7 days. So, it's pretty good for me

Brian_K_White3 hours ago

Outstanding! This is so...correct.