
Ultimate Writer: An Open Digital Typewriter - djsumdog
https://alternativebit.fr/posts/ultimate-writer/
======
smacktoward
I guess you know you're getting old when you start seeing people "invent"
things that you saw people using every day when you were young.

 _> I came to think, maybe we should create a digital typewriter giving us the
best of the two worlds._

What the author calls a "digital typewriter" is what originally used to be
known as a "word processor" \-- a standalone, dedicated digital device with a
keyboard and a (typically small, typically monochrome) display, running built-
in software for editing text:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_processor_(electronic_dev...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_processor_\(electronic_device\))

You would type on the keyboard and your words would appear on the display,
where you could go back and edit typos and such if you needed to. The display
usually only showed a few lines of text, but you could scroll up and down
through the entire document using the screen as a buffer. Your work would be
then persisted to some storage medium, often in later models a floppy disk. It
wasn't WYSIWYG, but it was a vast advance over mechanical typewriters, for all
the reasons the article mentions.

These devices had their heyday from the '60s through the '80s. They were
eventually rendered obsolete by the arrival of the inexpensive general-purpose
personal computer. All the functions of the word processor could be provided
on the PC via software, and the PC's bigger, more colorful display made it a
better environment for doing those things anyway. The programs people used to
do word processing on PCs came to be known as "word processors" themselves.
Eventually the dedicated devices stopped being made, and I guess over time
people just forgot that there was once a word processor that _wasn 't_
software.

My mother was a writer, and I have many childhood memories of her sitting at
her treasured Brother word processor. So perhaps I have more reason to
remember the hardware word processor than most people do.

~~~
Semiapies
And they _keep_ reinventing it. I don't see a year going by without a
Kickstarter or the like for one of these things.
[https://getfreewrite.com](https://getfreewrite.com)

Further, we've had oodles of minimalist/cut down/focused/sensory deprivation
gimmick word processors for the last twenty years, all essentially recreating
the UI of every single DOS word processing program.

And yet, whenever professional writers talk about what they write with, it's
almost always MS Word or some crappy screenplay program. Not some minimalist
program, not some special piece of hardware, just the standard tool available.
(Occasionally, their preferred text editor if they're a geek - just another
standard tool.) Decades and centuries ago, they used word processors or
typewriters or pen and paper because those were the available, standard tools.

Because a tool is just something to aid the act of writing, not a device for
squeezing it out of you when you have nothing to say.

~~~
djsumdog
You realize the author references the FreeWrite in the article and talks about
the reason for this particular creation was to have an open source version
that was cheaper.

------
vlunkr
By far the more interesting part here is that they got a terminal to display
on an e-ink screen. I've wanted to try that for a while now. If I could have
my normal displays, plus and e-ink display as a terminal, that would really be
sweet.

~~~
nmstoker
Might be interested in this kind of approach:
[https://www.engadget.com/2013/04/02/kindle-paperwhite-
raspbe...](https://www.engadget.com/2013/04/02/kindle-paperwhite-raspberry-pi-
hack/)

It's still going to suffer with the e-ink refresh speed but depending on what
you want to do in the terminal, you might be fine with it. Combined with a Pi
Zero W (not available when the solution above was done in 2013) and the
battery would probably last quite a while!

------
bwestergard
A no-frills e-ink bash terminal machine would be a delight for working through
a programming book in the park. If this were more portable and got longer
battery life (24+ hours) I would pay a few hundred dollars for it.

~~~
GorgeRonde
I own a Yotaphone 2 which is a a dual-screen android phone. The e-ink screen
is able to display the whole OS and not just some widgets.

------
jacknews
The alphasmart
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaSmart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaSmart))
is similar particularly the Dana which runs palmOS.

I really like the 'banner' display format on those (it could be even wider,
the full width of the keyboard). Using a standard format screen doesn't seem
to offer much over a laptop with some kind of locked-down writing app.

Does anyone sell that format lcd (or e-ink) display - ie about 10" x 1.5-2.0"
(250x50mm). Could they be made to order, and how would you go about it (and
what min. quantities to expect, etc)?

------
codethief
> Ben Kraznow found a way to implement a faster partial refresh which let you
> refresh the screen in about 0.3 seconds, which is more than enough for a
> text editing device.

Meanwhile, on the r/thinkpad subreddit they're complaining about ~15ms delays
on keyboards(×):
[https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/9j70v6/thinkpad_k...](https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/9j70v6/thinkpad_keyboard_firmware_worse_than_anyone/)

Granted, keyboard delay is to screen delay what an apple is to an orange but I
still don't think I could live with a 0.3s screen delay while typing.

×) I know it's not _exactly_ a delay but since typing any faster will cause
typos I'd say, effectively it is.

------
abdullahkhalids
I am trying to build something similar. I have a raspberry pi zero W, a 7.5
inch e-ink screen and some power electronics from adafruit. Have to find a
good keyboard and figure out how to build a case.

I am looking to build something more portable and something with a cleaner
design (no open wires/cables etc). An important design problem is how to match
a 7.5 inch screen with a much larger keyboard. There is the design here, with
a screen stuck in the middle of a large board - not very pretty looking. There
is the [https://getfreewrite.com/](https://getfreewrite.com/) way, which is
aesthetically more elegant, but the angle and location of the screen seems
worse from an ergonomic perspective.

Does anybody have a better idea?

------
Jtsummers
I want this loaded with a bunch of text adventure games.

------
rtkwe
That wrist position looks deeply un-ergonomic. Hate to think what it'll do
long term writing like that.

------
AstroAdam
Freewrite creator here, nice project!

------
clishem
Or you can just pick up a second hand AlphaSmart Neo like I did. Weeks of
battery life as well.

