The plan is to buy these:
- https://www.eink.com/product/detail/EC133UJ1
- https://shopkits.eink.com/en/product/detail/CONCERTODrivingBoard
- https://www.costco.com/macbook-pro-13.3-inch-%E2%80%93-apple-m2-chip-8-core-cpu%252C-10-core-gpu-%E2%80%93-256gb-ssd-.product.100806152.html
And hire someone to help me write a display driver that supports partial updates similar to the DASUNG’s 25” monitor. Can any embedded engineers weigh in on how big of an ask that display driver would be?
Is there a rake on my lawn? I have flashed cards before to hack a GoPro 8, soldered on breadboards, and partitioned drives, but always as a hobbyist, never professionally; and the dream here is to have an end product that I can use professionally.
Update/Edit: Useful feedback from replies:
- 1. The age of Thinkpad Hackintoshes is sunsetting, and the chips that support it are getting long in the tooth. You can't buy recent Intel chips and expect them to work flawlessly, and the laptops old enough to work are slow and hot.
- 2. the limitations and quirks in changing e-ink pixels are enough that regular laptop software would make for a bad user experience. So you'd spend a lot of time creating workarounds like a a separate LCD line-display showing what characters someone is typing until they hit enter, etc.
- 3. You could find a properly sized USB-C based eink screen and do some very tricky rewiring and not mess with macOS software at all
- 4. Alternatively: consider finding one of these on Ebay if you can for an "official" E-ink Thinkpad: https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/thinkbook/thinkbook-plus/lenovo-thinkbook-plus-gen-4-13-inch-intel/len101b0031
And my responses:
(1) This was my primary concern, thank you. I’ll update OP with new plan accordingly—Buy a 13” M2 MacBook and get help writing a display driver
(2) IMO the limitation is no longer in the display; DASUNG’s 25” monitor satisfies my display needs perfectly, my itch is/would be scratched successfully by cramming the 13” version of that Kaliedo 3 screen into a 13” MacBook. I know it can be done in theory because this is exactly how I used the DASUNG 25” monitor—it was just HDMI’d to the MacBook, and #justworked. I’m trying to figure out how I would do it in practice though, and assuming there’s more steps involved when buying the display/driver chip and soldering them in.
(3) yes you’re understanding my intent perfectly, but the only plug-and-play screen I’ve been able to find is [B&W only](https://www.amazon.com/DASUNG-Paper-Front-Light-Touch-Monitor/dp/B09VLDK58C/), and I’d like to support color.
(4) This is very likely the best idea. In my perfect world though I’m running OSX to support iMessage, etc. Maybe this is my sign to get off of iPhone though; there are many phone-sized e-ink devices running android that I could start building on. My general theory of useability is that A4 paper and 3x5 index cards were popular before computers for a reason, and one of each of those sizes as an e-ink screen is the longer-term ideal.