Modos, an organization that goals to ship gadgets constructed round ePaper electrophoretic shows, has introduced that it’s gearing as much as open orders for the Modos Paper Monitor — together with a developer’s equipment which features a show controller and a alternative of 6″ or 13.3″ ePaper show.
“I am excited to announce the pre-launch web page of the Modos Paper Monitor on Crowd Provide,” says Modos founder Alexander Soto. “The Modos Paper Monitor is an open-hardware 13.3-inch, 1600×1200 monochrome or shade E Ink monitor with a quick 60Hz refresh fee, low latency, a number of picture modes and dithering choices, and versatile display replace management. It may be related utilizing HDMI and USB-C and works on Linux, macOS, and Home windows.”
Modos initially launched with the mission to create an ePaper-based laptop computer, although within the two years since has refocused on delivering a standalone show — suitable with something that may output a 1600×1200 video sign by way of HDMI or USB Kind-C connections, in a shift from the originally-unveiled prototype’s use of a DisplayPort 1.2 reference to micro-USB energy.
The concept behind the Modos Paper Monitor — and the Modos Paper Laptop computer which can comply with — is to supply a extra eye-friendly show than the backlit LCD panels generally in use. The show makes use of an unspecified mannequin of ePaper panel, which gives a greyscale or limited-color picture drawing energy solely when it actively refreshes. Usually discovered on digital e-book readers, ePaper shows endure from gradual refresh charges — however the firm claims it has a dual-mode replace system which may replace a black-and-white picture at 60Hz.
Modos will even be making the motive force board accessible individually to the monitor. (📷: Modos)
The monitor is pushed by a customized show driver board, which Modos will even be promoting individually to builders excited by experimenting with parallel ePaper shows from E Ink, SiPix, and DES. That is primarily based round an AMD Spartan-6 LX16 field-programmable gate array (FPGA) operating the corporate’s in-house Caster gateware with a Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller to deal with USB communication and firmware replace duties.
Whereas Modos has revealed a web page on Crowd Provide forward of a deliberate crowdfunding marketing campaign for the Modos Paper Monitor and Modos Improvement Package, although, the corporate has not but disclosed pricing; its {hardware} designs are, nevertheless, accessible on GitHub below the Strongly Reciprocal model of the CERN Open {Hardware} License Model 2.