Interested in ereaders

D. Hugh Redelmeier hugh-pmF8o41NoarQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org
Thu Sep 19 04:09:15 UTC 2013


| From: Molly Tournquist <mollytournquist-ifvz4xmYPRU at public.gmane.org>
| 
| I'm curious about the prospect of open platform ereaders. I've heard of 
| one running nethack, but that was a kindle and the standard here seems 
| to be kobo, and that was when the kindle had a crude keyboard; it's 
| possible to hook up the nook to a keyboard, and the kindle to a rasperry 
| pi.

Kobos and Kindles are widely available.

Nook has to be imported.  Because they don't sell ebooks in Canada
(licensing), it makes no sense to them to sell ereaders here.

Kobo GPLed source code has been published.  Of course key parts of the
firmware are not GPLed.

People have hacked on the Kobo firmware binaries.  I forget the
details.  The format is something like a tarball so it is easy.
Busybox is in there, for example.  I think that a crude game was
released.

It may be my imagination, but I can't think of much I'd want my Kobo
ereaders to do.  The screen update is a bit painful for other
purposes.

I quite enjoy my Kobo mini: easy to carry a lot of books on the
subway.  I have much better tablets, but they don't slip into a pocket
as well and I have to keep their battery status in mind.

| There have been a few unlit ereaders that also play audio, but rockbox 
| development progresses awfully gradually, and there are only unstable 
| ports for two microtablet type devices. And it tends to spread 
| opportunistically due to similar and know internals, which would seem 
| thoroughly unlikely for ereaders, wouldn't it?

Like everything else, it just requires a lot of work :-)
I don't seem to get around to these kinds of projects even though I
think about them.

| Sorry if this is unwelcome here, but any linux integration issues or any 
| local sources for separate e-ink screens would be great to hear about of 
| course.

I'm happy to read messages about this stuff.
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