Maker Un Kyu Lee has unveiled the newest within the Micro Journal line-up of distraction-free writing devices, this time a tackle a modernized transportable digital typewriter — full with angle-adjustable studying mild to make the ePaper display screen extra usable indoors and at evening.
“That is the seventh revision of the Micro Journal. Once you scroll by way of the house display screen, the place all of the previous revisions are lined up, you may actually see how a lot it has advanced over time. Onerous to imagine it has been an entire 12 months since this venture began,” Lee writes of the newest mannequin. “For this model, I dialed again the creativity a bit and targeted on making one thing stable and grounded—no surprises, only a design that feels immediately acquainted and simple to make use of.”
The most recent Micro Journal design has now been launched — and it is the primary to boast an ePaper show. (
: Un Kyu Lee)
Because the maker says, Lee has been engaged on the Micro Journal household for round a 12 months — producing design after design all centered across the core idea of a tool which affords a distraction-free setting for writing, intentionally locked away from the flexibility to change out to different purposes. Some have been constructed round Raspberry Pi single-board computer systems; some upcycled smartphones; others Espressif ESP32 microcontrollers. All have in frequent a mechanical keyboard and a shade LCD show.
That’s, till the Micro Journal Rev. 7, delivered to our consideration by Liliputing. This mannequin is Lee’s first to make use of an ePaper show, based mostly on electrophoretic expertise and drawing energy solely when it modifications states. It is the closest factor to paper you will get and nonetheless be capable to replace what’s on there, although with the drawbacks that it takes a comparatively very long time to refresh and shade fashions are gradual, usually pale, and costly.
“I wasn’t totally satisfied at first. [ePaper] is an interesting expertise,” Lee says, “and other people discuss it loads, however it comes with trade-offs — delayed response, ghosting, and a painfully gradual refresh price. The show I used, the T5 e-Paper from LILYGO, helps partial refresh. So, I modified the code to replace solely the sections that modified as a substitute of refreshing the entire display screen. This improved issues loads. Regardless of all of the technical drawbacks, the feeling of writing on [ePaper] received me over.”
The keyboard makes use of a Raspberry Pi Pico to host a QMK-based firmware, whereas the principle system is powered by an Espressif ESP32-S3. (: Un Kyu Lee)
The show folds down right into a slick 3D-printed typewriter-inspired physique that homes a mechanical keyboard with a staggered structure — one other shift from the grid-like ortholinear structure of most earlier designs. The ultimate contact: an angle-adjustable lamp, making up for the ePaper show’s lack of front- or backlight — which means the machine can be utilized even in the dead of night, with the lamp illuminating each the show and the keyboard.
Design information and firmware for the Micro Journal Rev. 7 can be found within the Micro Journal GitHub repository, underneath the Artistic Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Worldwide license.
