@xianc78 if i had enough juice to get hardware fediblobs onboard i'd just say eh we could design a new one. but they're not interested in this.

@icedquinn Well given how cheap a used alphasmart is and the niche market it serves, I don't think there would be a market for one.

But now, I'm tempted to get a used Alphasmart. I remember the 3000 and Neo models (maybe the other ones too) could run small programs called "applets". I wonder if there is documentation out there. It would be fun to write homebrew software/games for that thing.

@xianc78 maybe i should just get one of those eink monitors and run emacs on it.

@icedquinn @xianc78 I actually did a few hours of research on my dream e-ink thing but realized I would have to do more coding than I would like to make an e-ink display UI

I had one of these I wanted to hook to a mini mechanical keyboard and do a 3d printed case: https://inkplate.io/

@icedquinn @xianc78 also designing a custom keyboard PCB was a little daunting (even tho I'm sure there's open source ones that could be modified/used easily)

@icedquinn @xianc78 these days, if I were to go forward with it, I would make it a bit more feature rich, like have a 2nd oled display and ways of attaching a LimeSDR module and/or logic analyzer/injector/JTAG debugger, etc -- portable super hacker device that would be ready to pull off action movie level hijinx

@harblinger @xianc78 keebs are pretty easy circuits. very well solved and documented problem.

eInk does have the problem in that it is slow. it's back to old DOS rules where you optimize dirty rects and only update what you absolutely need to. Dascun is making a faster refresh but its (unsurprisingly) very expensive.

@icedquinn@blob.cat @xianc78@gameliberty.club the problem we face is that ... designing shit takes time. making it takes money. making enough to sell to break even takes fucktons of time and usually isn't even possible.

to pick nyasoc's biggest project, it should cost something like $400 if it were to be produced & sold as a complete unit, and you'd still have to slap your own rare audio chips in. everyone involved in making it would still be eating ramen. i'm assuming only a few 1000 in sales, this is a stupidly niche product compared to an 'lectric typewriter which has far wider appeal.

the problem is NOT that it isn't interesting :)

our economy is that of scale, which means shit that doesn't scale likewise doesn't profit. you sell 6000 of them and that's it, nobody else exists that wants one. it's incompatible with "paying the bills".

there are examples and proven strategies for forcing something like this to be evergreen, but that's what it boils down to.

@purple @xianc78 i could probably find a way to do it with a prototyping board but i would ideally like to use some low draw processors because the Neo 2 gets a stupid amount of battery life because of that.