>Let’s cut short: I’m really interested to be one of your customer (as
>long as you are in my budget and you can deliver to Europe in a way or
>another). That’s really the kind of service I was hoping to see: a
>custom computer maker. That’s awesome. I understand that this would, of
>course, not be a cheap computer.

It would truly be an honor to work on something for you, and delivery
is possible even in the case that I have to fly it out myself. I'll
follow up directly to start chatting about details.

>The usync/dsync is really a great idea. I guess those scripts could be
>extended to allow synchronisation through USB with a remote data
>storage.

Absolutely, this is one of the benefits of having a shell/kernel — you
can think up little utilities for nearly anything and implement them
locally and quickly. True programming, I would go so far as to say.

>I guess we can easily include tools that are now mostly standard:
>python, ripgrep, fdfind, less, pandoc, git and a few others.
>Are you running X or Wayland? (if yes, a WM like i3 would make sense).
>Another question: does it have audio? This is something I’ve mixed
>feelings. I don’t know if it is a good idea or not.
>For my part, I would really be interested by an ethernet connection to
>synchronize Offpunk and my emails (currently neomutt/msmtp/offlineimap).
>It would be awesome to have a physical button that would :
>1. enable ethernet if it is plugged.
>2. Run do_the internet.sh (my infamous script which sync offpunk/git
>repositories/email)
>3. run usync/dsync if an USB is plugged.

Adding other software tools is very easy, just a few lines of config.
Same for a WM like i3. NixOS is pleasantly mature these days. I could
certainly physically expose the ethernet jack and add another tactile
button (functionally a hotkey) with a small software interface in case
you'd like to bind it to another command as well.

>What’s your opinion of MNT?

I really like MNT as a company/research org, they are thinking about
the right sorts of things and anyone doing good work in this space is
a very good thing. The pocket reform and reform are interesting ideas,
but they don't strike me as an order of magnitude better than the NUC
I used. It's very nice that they've OS'd the hardware (a wildly rare
thing to do), but drivers and part compatibility are big pains in
hardware development — when you have a system that incorporates some
funky components, adding stuff on top gets funky. It's faster and
nicer to just use stuff that you know will work and work well. So
overall: although a great first stab at an OS computer, it is
worrisome in its lack of maturity and widespread adoption (as opposed
to the incumbents).

>That was one of my key requirement: I would like a computer with an eink
>screen. It really change completely the way I interact with a screen
>but, I agree, a lot of the software stack should be completely
>rethinked. Take the terminal: instead of scrolling line after line once
>you reach the end of the screen, it should instead refresh the screen
>and bring you immediately to the the top (kind of a "clear" command).
>Also wondering how to use Vim with eink (the Freewrite managed to do it
>so it is not impossible). Another alternative would be LCD screen.

Performant eink is by no means impossible (see e.g. the Remarkable
tablets https://remarkable.com/), but it is time-intensive for the
reasons I mentioned. Most products that have been able to achieve what
I would consider 'acceptable' performance are produced by large
engineering orgs, so for one guy it's tough. They also decay
irreparably with use over a period of a few years (I believe ~3 years
was a number I saw somewhere), and they decay faster the faster you
push them (i.e. bumping refresh rates). You mentioned an LCD as an
alternative — the Mythic I does indeed use an LCD. There are
monochrome LCDs as well that are much easier to interface with and
have better longevity than einks, so I think they're not a bad option
either. In general I lean towards more established technologies
because they are easier to interface with and tend to be more
reliable. Luckily the wood will last for centuries in nearly any case.

>Another pet requirement of mine is the keyboard. A good, mechanical,
>orthogonal keyboard. Examples:

I love the moonlander — it could certainly be used! A design
consideration though is that for each cm of width you add overall, you
add quite a bit of weight.

-Keegan McNamara

On 23/03/30 03:38, Keegan McNamara - keemcn1 at gmail.com wrote:
>
>>What’s your opinion of MNT?
>
>I really like MNT as a company/research org, they are thinking about
>the right sorts of things and anyone doing good work in this space is
>a very good thing. The pocket reform and reform are interesting ideas,
>but they don't strike me as an order of magnitude better than the NUC
>I used. It's very nice that they've OS'd the hardware (a wildly rare
>thing to do), but drivers and part compatibility are big pains in
>hardware development — when you have a system that incorporates some
>funky components, adding stuff on top gets funky. It's faster and
>nicer to just use stuff that you know will work and work well. So
>overall: although a great first stab at an OS computer, it is
>worrisome in its lack of maturity and widespread adoption (as opposed
>to the incumbents).
>
>>That was one of my key requirement: I would like a computer with an eink
>>screen. It really change completely the way I interact with a screen
>>but, I agree, a lot of the software stack should be completely
>>rethinked. Take the terminal: instead of scrolling line after line once
>>you reach the end of the screen, it should instead refresh the screen
>>and bring you immediately to the the top (kind of a "clear" command).
>>Also wondering how to use Vim with eink (the Freewrite managed to do it
>>so it is not impossible). Another alternative would be LCD screen.
>
>Performant eink is by no means impossible (see e.g. the Remarkable
>tablets https://remarkable.com/), but it is time-intensive for the
>reasons I mentioned. Most products that have been able to achieve what
>I would consider 'acceptable' performance are produced by large
>engineering orgs, so for one guy it's tough. They also decay
>irreparably with use over a period of a few years (I believe ~3 years
>was a number I saw somewhere), and they decay faster the faster you
>push them (i.e. bumping refresh rates). You mentioned an LCD as an
>alternative — the Mythic I does indeed use an LCD. There are
>monochrome LCDs as well that are much easier to interface with and
>have better longevity than einks, so I think they're not a bad option
>either. In general I lean towards more established technologies
>because they are easier to interface with and tend to be more
>reliable. Luckily the wood will last for centuries in nearly any case.

Another idea I had was to experiment with a screenless setup : directly
printing on paper. The setup should, of course, be tested but I was
wondering how manageable it was to write by printing directly, using
potentially ed and less to edit and read file.

That could be really interesting. I don’t know if anybody on this list
has an experience with that.

On Fri, Mar 31, 2023 at 09:24:43AM +0000, Ploum wrote:
> 
> Another idea I had was to experiment with a screenless setup : directly
> printing on paper. The setup should, of course, be tested but I was
> wondering how manageable it was to write by printing directly, using
> potentially ed and less to edit and read file.
> 
> That could be really interesting. I don’t know if anybody on this list
> has an experience with that.

What I would suggest in that regard is ed and espeakup so you don’t use the paper resource. I have used ed every day for all editing tasks, both journaling, coding, and blog composition.

I have used espeakup a certain amount with screenless computers, e.g. old laptops with broken screens and found it mildly usable but definitely needing refinement.

Towards that end I wrote a z script (like the z command in my ed which prints a screen of lines) which I think of as the “easy” command. The z script runs any command but saves stdout and stderr and simply replies with success or failure. Then I can go back and use ed to look through the log. This reduces the amount of speech produced by espeakup.

My ultimate goal is to make a system which would only need one button for more code input and a microphone for simple local speech/sound recognition instead of a full keyboard.


Also, in thinking about the forever computer, I have thought that the conclusion would be that myths/stories and human connection is the real forever computer. Think about how many people have "retained" various traditional stories and knowledge and such!

Love this list. Be well!
Craig