7 ms·
Lego Macintosh Classic with e‑paper display
- doomslay 9y agoCutting lego bricks? Eugh. There's specific bricks that would have worked exactly.
- nebabyte 9y agoYeah, it... Kind of misses the entire point of LEGO lol. and catastrophe*. Not OP but I just have to
- detritus 9y agoI very much prefer 'catastrophy' - it's well-earned failure.
- agumonkey 9y agoI (o _ o) when I saw the picture. GorE.
- sschueller 9y agoRule #1: don't cut LEGO
- jayniz2 9y agoDon't worry, I discussed this with the folks at LEGO already and we're good: http://imgur.com/dOkyl4S http://imgur.com/dOkyl4S But yeah, after this post some nice folks showed me how a <2mm wall can be achieved without slaughtering bricks (special wall pieces, mounted sideways to allow for the left side of the display's board to disappear in in the Mac's frame).
- alexvoda 9y agoWhat bricks are those? I don't really see how you would build that wall. It looks like it needs to be thinner than 1 unit. Also can the floppy slot be used for the microSD card?
- bullman 9y agoThis brick: NzRyg7XKhGLLe6BXzQn7p1wMA9PG1ouPG2a6DO1ey5gmlqqAT6YDwdTAjOXZGlZc6k8bYqlm2Q5DuHmtFj4oJWemEFmi9MhJ6h1Q I think there others too
- mynameisvlad 9y agoUm. Did you mean to post a link? All I see is garbled text.
- mdjt 9y agoDefinitely an illegal connection...
- walrus01 9y agoThe Mac 128k was not from 1988. In that time frame, The Mac plus was the first really usable model with a 20MB HDD.
- jayniz 9y agoThe Mac 128k is a different model, check out the floppy slot!
- redacted 9y agojayniz - all your comments on this post are dead, it looks like you may have been shadowbanned (apologies for hijacking the comment!)
- jayniz2 9y agoWell that explains why my post of this story got no upvotes. Thanks for telling me. No idea why my account would be shadowbanned. How do I unban it? Anyways, here's my response to walrus01: The Mac 128k is a different model, check out the floppy slot!
- detaro 9y ago> How do I unban it? e-mail the mods at hn@ycombinator.com
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- phpnode 9y ago> No idea why my account would be shadowbanned. 3 years ago you committed the offence of punning on HN, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5144413 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5144413
- StavrosK 9y agoShunnnnnnnn
- timvdalen 9y agoLooks really slick! Is there any way to interact with the system though? Is the Pi actually running Mac OS or is it just a static image?
- gryphel 9y agoIt should be able to run Mac OS software using an emulator, similar to a previous project that used a Raspberry Pi: http://retromaccast.ning.com/profiles/blogs/honey-i-shrunk-the-computer http://retromaccast.ning.com/profiles/blogs/honey-i-shrunk-t... https://www.engadget.com/2013/08/28/mini-classic-macintosh-made-with-raspberry-pi/ https://www.engadget.com/2013/08/28/mini-classic-macintosh-m...
- rangibaby 9y agoPics need a banana for scale /E I'm serious though, it is hard to tell how large it is from the pics
- jayniz 9y agoTrue! I forgot, apologies. Now it's already at my friend's place and I need him to take the photo :-)
- TeMPOraL 9y agoIn the colourful prototype picture there's a bottle cap for scale. It's a breach of Internet etiquette, which would require a banana, but it works for the purpose.
- jayniz2 9y agoTrue! I forgot, apologies. Now it's already at my friend's place and I need him to take the photo :-)
- semi-extrinsic 9y agoScreen is 2.7" diagonal, so (roughly) the front face of this computer is about the size of a 3.5" floppy.
- redsummer 9y agoI'd love a pi with an e-paper display (larger than the lego Mac) which just booted into Raspbian CLI. Has such a thing been done?
- lucaspiller 9y agoI'd also love something like that. It seems there is a lack of demand though, as larger e-ink displays get expensive [0] and the only kits designed for the Raspberry Pi are small (<3"), so you'd need to figure out the protocol yourself. That combined with a small keyboard and a phone for a hotspot would be awesome, I'd love to be able to sit in a park and code in the summer... [0] 7.4" for $122, they sell a 10" for $300 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/SW074AS182/SW074AS182-ND/4898789 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/SW074AS182/SW074AS1...
- detaro 9y agoLook into jailbroken e-readers. Not as much freedom with the hardware, potentially driver issues for peripherals, but cheap. Recent relevant HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13863046 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13863046
- 0942v8653 9y agoHey, that's my thread! In case anyone's wondering, I ended up with a $25 Nook Simple Touch. If you just want the screen and no touch capability, then look through the rest of the thread. Unfortunately, I have not had the time to play with it much yet, but I can tell you the rooting process works very smoothly for the NST.
- thinnerlizzy 9y agoThere's this 4.3" display: http://www.waveshare.com/4.3inch-e-paper.htm http://www.waveshare.com/4.3inch-e-paper.htm I have one, seems well built, it's just been sitting in a box until I come up with a good use for it.
- redsummer 9y ago
- ruthtaylor123 9y agoThats a good loooking website. Thumbs up!
- jayniz2 9y agoThanks, it's just the default theme from ghost.org :)
- maaaats 9y agoHow powerful is this small replica compared to the original hardware?
- giancarlostoro 9y ago8mhz vs 1.2GHz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Classic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Classic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi
- hilti 9y agoPretty cool. I like it!
- codecamper 9y agoThat's awesome... but can you really play shufflepuck on eInk? I miss shufflepuck too!
- jlebrech 9y agono mac os?
- alexandros 9y agoIncredible work jayniz -- I guess everyone and their mother is suggesting improvements, are you preparing a new version with the rpi zero W and non-cut lego blocks? Disclaimer: resin.io founder, we're so happy you chose resin for this awesome project ;)
- Philomath 9y agoAwesome! I love how HN connects people.
- jayniz 9y agoHa, exactly, but it's all good :) One guy actually made an LDD model that would require no cutting. I'll post it as a follow up on my blog. Also to everybody reading this: I'd respond to the other comments but hacker news doesn't let me ("you're submitting too fast" even though I didn't write anything since half an hour or so)
- AKifer 9y agoProbably that's how we will build computers in 20 years.
- _sbrk 9y agoDocker emulator images on ARM hardware? Hardly.
- antirez 9y agoIs somebody able to explain why certain e-ink displays are so slow to refresh while others are much faster? For instance my Garmin Vivoactive HR e-ink display, that is even capable of displaying 64 colors, is like an LCD display in terms of refresh rate apparently, you can't see the difference easily, while the one that was used to build this project takes a lot of time to even show a single frame (see the Youtube video where the display is presented, following the link Jann provided in the blog post). My best guess is that they use completely different technologies. EDIT: Vivoactive HR uses a Transreflective LCD actually. This web site explains very well how it works: http://t17.net/transflectiveTFT/ http://t17.net/transflectiveTFT/
- crazydoggers 9y agoThat's because your Garmin actually uses a type of 'transreflective' LCD and not e-ink... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transflective_liquid-crystal_display https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transflective_liquid-crystal...
- antirez 9y agoOk cool, thank you. The contrast is actually not like an e-ink display, but under sunlight it becomes excellent.
- mej10 9y agoDoes that really have an e-ink display? Their specs page says "sunlight-visible, transflective memory-in-pixel (MIP)" which seems to be a type of LCD that has characteristics like e-ink. Also: Thanks for Redis!
- antirez 9y agoYes, you are right... different tech indeed! Works as a very good approximation of an e-ink frankly (I've a few kindle readers for comparison), but the contrast in artificial light is not as good as e-ink. Thanks! (and you are welcome).
- jordache 9y agoI don't get it.. is it just using e-ink to display greyscale image? So that's just a screenshot of app chrome and the hello text?
- mamcx 9y agoI wish exist a e-paper suitable for use as monitor (21" at least) * I mean, not a prototype in a galaxy far away
- jkaunisv1 9y agoMy dream is an e-paper laptop
- Nexxxeh 9y agoNot an e-paper laptop, but an interesting tangent from yesteryear. Did you see the display in the OLPC? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLPC_XO#Display https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLPC_XO#Display
- jkaunisv1 9y agoYes, though I opted not to get one because of the form factor and all the sacrifices they made in service of their goal (which was great but not for me).
- emptythought 9y agoDon't let your dreams be dreams: https://www.engadget.com/2010/07/19/how-to-install-pixel-qis-3qi-display-on-your-netbook-and-why/ https://www.engadget.com/2010/07/19/how-to-install-pixel-qis... (A friend of mine is about to order this, i've seen it, it's as awesome as you'd imagine)
- amiga-workbench 9y agoI would kill for a 12.1" 16:10 eink panel for my x201. I enjoy sitting in the garden at work in the summer.
- ge96 9y agonice font
- ohitsdom 9y agoAwesome project! Would anyone else chose a different software solution rather than Docker with resin.io? I love working on projects like this but I've stayed away from Docker so far. Docker plus a third-party service to manage it seems like it could be overkill, but it obviously got the job done.
- aroman 9y agoSpeaking as a resin fan, you need to know 0 about docker to use it. It does virtually everything for you, the fact that it's docker underneath is hidden entirely except in that you can write a dockerfile. It's like how you don't need to provision hardware with Heroku. You just git push. And it works.
- amelius 9y agoDoes it emulate the Macintosh Classic?
- aphextron 9y agoIt looks like there's a business opportunity here for someone to make a really slick browser based LEGO editor that does cost estimates and orders all the correct components for you when you're finished. I'm curious how large the market for such a thing would be.
- gmurphy 9y agoLEGO itself had such a service, but shut it down in 2012: http://ldd.lego.com/en-us/subpages/designbyme http://ldd.lego.com/en-us/subpages/designbyme
- wazanator 9y agoI remember using it in middle school and the prices were quite high. It was a great idea but no parents wanted to pay an extra premium on top of an already expensive product.
- tyingq 9y agoThere's this: https://www.mecabricks.com/en/workshop https://www.mecabricks.com/en/workshop No integrated purchase though.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- aphextron 9y agoI see. As with any decent obvious idea, it's already been done 10x better than I could hope to. Thanks.
- i_don_t_know 9y agohttps://studio.bricklink.com/v2/build/studio.page https://studio.bricklink.com/v2/build/studio.page
- tcdent 9y agoBrickStock is an OSX application that takes your Lego Digital Designer files and breaks them out into a manifest, which it then uses to reference the BrickLink marketplace for pricing.
- TheRealPomax 9y agoNow it just needs to accept "something" through the slot to trigger "something" to happen on the screen.
- NoGravitas 9y agoNow this really needs to be running Basilisk II and a System 7 ROM. Hook up a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and you're set.
- mproud 9y agoWhy would you put an e-ink display on this if it’s not going to be used?