VNC viewer for the kindle:

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150434

How to use your Kindle DX as a display:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/259582/how_to_use_a_kindle_dx...

I tried the vnc over the raspberry from the kindle and it wasn't really satisfying for what it worth. The e-ink display size and refresh rate is ok for shell action, but not so interesting for the X window...

I'd love to have a 24" or 30" USB-driven eInk screen or three for fairly static stuff like documentation. Running a terminal on an eInk display is probably less painful than repeatedly bashing your toes into a cinder block. Probably.

An iPhone would probably make a far better portable screen.

Cool hack, though.

The e-ink datasheet[1] says that they don't make them any bigger than 12" sadly:

[1].http://www.eink.com/sell_sheets/pearl%20sell%20sheet.pdf

Quick buy some Kindle DXs while you still can.

I wonder if the screen is fast enough. I would love to work on an actual non-glowing screen.

Depends on what you want to do, and if you can override the clear-screen page blanking. As a benchmark, here's someone running a Playstation 1 emulator on an e-ink Nook:

http://boards.openpandora.org/index.php?/topic/9877-psx-emul...

That's absurdly cool.

Pixel Qi makes some sort of sunlight-readable display for netbooks: http://pixelqi.com/products

I hope these take off, because I also would love to not be staring into a lamp for hours per day.

I wish they would, but Pixel's been offering those for years now and nothing's really come of it.

My first thought was the same - if it performs like the "page flip" on the Kindle, I'd jump off a high building within minutes. But I've no idea if most of that delay is down to the screen or some combination of processing power and/or conserving power.

The full-page flashing refresh on the Kindle is a software measure to get rid of the afterimage that would otherwise remain on the screen. Here's what it looks like when it's disabled: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQJGfU8fEUg

yeah it's actually not bad, the refresh is only on the character itself so it's workable. If you have a hacked kindle you can test with a terminal emulator, it give you a good idea of how fast the typing be.

I was thinking if they did make 20inches e-ink - I would love to have that for my shell only workload. Would be nice for the eyes, light and minimal!

In my experience tinkering around at home with my kindle a year or two ago, the eink display is fast enough that using Vim on it feels about the same as a noticeably slow but still usable ssh session. With a real keyboard attached, it is something that I could see myself using.

Well, quite a few Unix editors might still have the necessary hacks for low-baud terminal connections, which probably help in this case, too.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Simon Sharwood provided a quite deep and comprehensive review of my post:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/11/kindleberry_pi/

The part I prefer the most is when he uses 'long suit' instead of 'strong suit'.

I was hoping for a lower level hack, but it _is_ neat.

That said, I still have a couple of broken laptops here and want to check out if I can connect the lcd displays to my Raspberry Pi in the future. When I don't fail at basic googling skills to get past all the inverse projects (replacing a broken screen instead of reusing a working screen from a laptop).

If you get it working, please post here: http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/q/848/86

I bought my Raspberry Pi a week ago, and I thought about the exact same thing! I have a Kindle 4, though.

Nice work!

Fantastic hack. I've been meaning to find an excuse to play with the Pi, and well, this is it.

I would love to use this as a novel way to force myself to learn vim.