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Tuesday, April 23, 2024

Micro Journal Provides a Customizable writerDeck Expertise



One of many many nice causes to decide on writing as a pastime or career is that the barrier to entry is on the ground. All you actually want to jot down is a pencil and a few paper — or no matter laptop or smartphone you already personal. However as with the whole lot else in life, there are extra environment friendly and nice methods to jot down. Devoted gadgets supply a streamlined expertise with out distractions, however the choices are restricted. Micro Journal stands out as a result of its modular design permits for quite a lot of customization.

Micro Journal, designed by Un Kyu Lee, is household of loosely associated writerDeck iterations. The primary iteration was fairly commonplace and was constructed round a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W with a compact 30-key mechanical keyboard and ultrawide monitor. The second iteration appeared comparable, however utilized an previous smartphone as a substitute of a single-board laptop (SBC). The third iteration was a giant departure, with an uncommon break up keyboard and a small display screen within the center. As a substitute of an SBC or telephone, it ran on an ESP32 microcontroller.

The latest iteration, quantity 4, is analogous, however modular with a much more standard keyboard. Many of the system is totally contained inside a single 3D-printed enclosure, which holds the display screen, an ESP32 improvement board, the battery, and a few management buttons. The ESP32 acts as a USB host, so customers can join no matter keyboard they like.

Using the ESP32 is advantageous for just a few causes. First, it boots up nearly immediately, versus the minutes it usually takes an SBC. Second, it consumes far much less energy than an SBC and may subsequently run for longer with out requiring a bigger battery. Conversely, it could possibly run for the same period of time on a a lot smaller battery. And at last, it could possibly work straight with low-cost, low-resolution LCD screens. On this case, the fourth iteration Micro Journal makes use of a 2.8” TFT LCD based mostly on the favored ILI9341 driver with a decision of 320×240.

That is an open supply mission and anybody can construct no matter iteration of the Micro Journal they like. However Un Kyu Lee can also be promoting the fourth iteration on Tindie, already assembled. Customers simply want to produce their very own keyboard. This runs Un Kyu Lee’s personal firmware, which is a quite simple distraction-free phrase processor. It helps syncing with Google drive, which ought to make it handy to make use of. It’s at present out of inventory on Tindie, however writers can be a part of the waitlist.

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