Well, the kindle runs essentially Linux so by jailbreaking it you gain the ability to launch arbitrary code! Eg alternate pdf readers, games, ssh, vim and a lot more which can be very useful (especially the off reader KOreader)!
check out mobilereads forums if you want to know more about that, it's a vibrant community.
What I'd like to see is someone get xterm in Tektronix 4014 emulation mode with $EDITOR to run on the Kindle Keyboard. Because e-ink screens are exactly like the old Tektronix vector displays, in that adding a character/line/dot to the screen is much faster than repainting the whole screen. Should make for a much more useable experience.
You can left-justify text, just like in actual books. That alone is reason enough to jailbreak, it baffles me why amazon are so tone-deaf regarding this.
Nice. I wonder if you could do away with the laptop altogether, and just use your phone with the Kindle, maybe with a bluetooth keyboard for the kindle (for some light work on a beach).
Or if there are any other e-ink tablets that run a full linux (cli) or Android?
There are eink readers that are easier to hack, like the Kobo, but they're all limited in that they're e-readers and have the minimal processing power to match. The only full on eink tablet I know of is this one[0] which technically doesn't exist yet. It's fully funded, though, so I'm excited to see if it actually ships.
That's a limitation of e-ink that has yet to be explored. The Dasung paperlike[0] is a usb driven eink screen. From what I've seen of it so far, the refresh rate is on par with other usb-driven monitors I've used. It's about good enough for editing text, but anything more gets old fast. I wonder how fast that monitor could be pushed if used displayport instead of USB.
I've been tempted to buy an eink dev kit and see how fast I can push the refresh rate without consideration for battery life. Alas, I can't justify the cost. Oh, and I've never done embedded programming or driver development before. I suspect that might be an issue. :D
Using vim in 'noredraw' mode you don't need high refresh rate, 9600 baud is fine.
Well, I'd say even more - these days when usual attention span is like, I don't know, 5 seconds? having a device which is restrictive in this regard, might be a very positive experience.
> having a device which is restrictive in this regard, might be a very positive experience.
It's funny you should say that. A guy I know hired some programmers to come up with custom software for a hacked Boox. It was a universal inbox for twitter, reddit, facebook and email conversations. The idea was that it purposely forced him to focus on only one thing at a time to increase his attention span and reduce the "instant thrill" of web browsing.
He has this entire theory of 'low reward lifestyle' I find intriguing.
Then again, he didn't try to do any programming on it. I'm a big fan of keeping the write -> compile loop as small as possible.
Well, write-compile loop depends on language and what you do. Of course it would be horrible experience to e.g. hack some mostly undocumented record format in Lisp REPL into ad-hoc parser routine on the screen with 1Hz refresh rate.
But we may find some activities almost opposite to that example. Like, write a code (in literate programming style preferably) of some sophisticated algorithm, well-thought before, especially in language that doesn't support REPL-style well - e.g. C, where you know the tests wouldn't help you much and accuracy (and focus) is a king.
And we don't have a need to strictly oppose those both activities to each other actually. Playing with REPL at home, done this part of work ('the quick part'), then take an eInk and go out to the park to slow down and think about that part ('the slow and focused part') - that sounds good for me.
The 'universal conversation app' is would be great to have on its own merit.
check out mobilereads forums if you want to know more about that, it's a vibrant community.