Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/06/17/microjournal-a-distraction-free-writing-device-with-knobs.html
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Does anyone know why the screen on these things is always so small…?
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It’s traditional.
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Battery life, protection, reduced costs?
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Well, that explains the ‘always’. 
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Reduced legibility…?
Tradeoffs must be made, but small high-contrast screens are not uncommon?
… when the display is any bigger, people expect them to work like laptops or smartphones
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Knobs feel like they’d be a built-in distraction device to me. I’d just keep turning them, similar to what I do with my mouse wheel sometimes.
That said, this is probably one of those distraction-free writing devices I’ve seen that doesn’t look too bad.
That has a retro charm that i think i dig? But if it only comes with Windows then it’s broken straight out of the box.
@beschizza They also seem to be offering a bring-your-own-keyboard version on another page if you need a Cormac fix:
which unlike the BYOK project previously featured here on BoingBoing is already realized at about the same price point if not exactly the same size.
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So this means I have permission to shop for $170 worth of nice pens and inks and paper so I don’t buy it, right?
Thanks BoingBoing! You’ve saved my marriage! 
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Isn’t anyone doing one with an e-paper display? They seem to be getting better in price, capability and refresh rate. I’d think they’d be easier on the eyes when editing, plus less power use on a portable device.
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… just prototypes by engineering students
DIY eink typewriter
Tapico Typer: an e-ink powered digital typewriter
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jah, I dont know; for me the colors of this gadget are neither stylish nor distraction-free. and the screen is…not really…its kinda cheap, like an old 80s gaming LCD-handheld. as mentioned before, why not go all the way and use an e-ink? in that size there fairly cheap these days and the refreshrate should absolutly be enough for text only.
e/ ah, alright then, thats very nice and I take my criticism about the colors back;
Customizable Colors: Contact me through Tindie messages with your color preferences and reference images. I’ll send you 3D rendered images and find a fitting color scheme for free.
tough not a word about the screen.
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I think it largely comes down to what your options are when you aren’t commissioning a custom part; along with what you can protect when you aren’t doing a clamshell or using the sorts of fancy toughened glass that the tablet guys do. (with the balance contributed by the long cultural shadow of the AlphaSmart)
You can certainly do physically bigger while keeping it old-school; HD44780-compatibles at 40x4 characters are reasonably common(though if you need more than 4 lines it seems like that avenue becomes a blind alley pretty quickly); but, especially if you do want something a bit less aggressively rectangular, you are mostly stuck with various SPI or I2C displays which tend to be pretty small.
If you want larger than that you are pretty much talking DSI, which is proprietary-but-reverse-engineered-in-some-useful-cases on the display side; and means that you’ll be moving up to either an rPi or something with a reasonably ghastly Android BSP on the device side.
eDP gives you more options; but at that point you are in the realm of "just run a really elitist esoteric command line environment on a normal laptop(which is quite possibly the sensible play; but is no longer a ‘device’ project).
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Ah, the Cenotype; for writers who have such sights to describe to you and fingers that seek the limits of physical experience…
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The really cool thing is that Un Kyu Lee lives in Italy, so unlike pretty much anything else in this space this actually ships from an EU country. So for once the price quoted on the website is actually the one I’d pay (+shipping) if I ordered one. No extra VAT and customs adding 25-30%
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