[replax]

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.

[semi-extrinsic]

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.

[JetSetWilly]

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.

[dharma1]

Is it usable in a beach situation, if you really need to hack away in bright sunshine?

[lj3]

This guy thinks so: https://tinyapps.org/docs/e-ink-monitor.html

[dharma1]

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?

[lj3]

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.

[0]: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/13-3-inch-android-e-reade...

[dharma1]

That 13.3 e-ink tablet looks pretty tasty, I hope it materialises.

I suppose you could run VNC on your Android/Ubuntu phone, and just use the e-ink tablet as a thin client.

Maybe the slow redraw of e-ink would suck for real work, unless there are ways to make it more palatable for terminal work

[lj3]

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

[0]: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/paperlike-world-s-first-e...

[snaky]

There's more - Onyx Boox Max, Sony DPT-S1

[emodendroket]

This is precisely the scenario e-ink excels in.