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Hacking Esquire's E-ink Cover
ptorrone writes "I picked up the Esquire E-inked cover today and took a bunch of high res photos, for the makers out there. It has a programming header, 5-pin ISP, a Microchip PIC 12f629 which is flash programmable, 8 pin, 6 lithium coin cell CR2016s, 3 volts each. Two E-ink screens with flex connections — looks like it was made to be reprogrammed and different screens. The top screen has 11 segments, the bottom has 3. It was designed 2008-06-04. The PCB was made by Forewin, half thickness, 2 layer board (FR4). I think someone out there will likely reflash the PIC and make the segments go on / off at different times and perhaps put other displays on it, there's a little bit of hacking to be had but not that much really."
I really need to stop mentally pronouncing it "E-squire".
who cares! until the magazine can read to me while I'm on the toilet, and answer my questions, or rebuttal my comments, I don't care how much technology goes into the cover.
Then again if Playboy gets a digital cover that talks dirty to me then I have the option of recanting my previous statement.
'mmmmmmmmm.... forbidden donut'
if someone went and re-flashed all the controllers in the Esquire mags to display porn (first thing that comes to mind is Goatse) instead of the original content?
Um, then it would display goatse.
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
http://www.esquire.com/features/recycle-e-ink-cover
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I don't get it. What do YOU think will happen?
All I can see is a company gets a black eye, blames the whole thing on 'those evil hackers', and sends a potentially cool technology away forever.
And if the first thing you think of when you think of porn is 'Goatse', man, I'm sorry.
"These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based on the order in which I joined" --Homer re:
My guess would be that this "screen" is not able to display arbitrary images, rather it can only display those images pre-burned onto the "e-ink". The PIC controller merely flips switches on and off at set time intervals or by button presses. Although interesting and indeed hackable, the hardware necessary to do this stuff is already quite cheap (something like $25 for a USB pickit 1 from Microchip.com).
It's impossible. These E-ink displays aren't pixel displays (which could show any image), they are segment based (like a cheap calculator, watch, or old LCD game). They can only display what they have been designed to show. Your only choices are for each segment to be dark or light.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Right. The display is just like old Game & Watch games (or any other cheap LCD display). They have a bunch of segments (in this case mostly blocks of words) that can be turned on or off. I'd expect that just like LCDs the more segments you have the more expensive it is to manufacture the thing (not including the cost of controller).
If you watch the little video that the Make blog post links to, you can see how limited it is.
That said, it seems to refresh quite fast, which the e-books have problems with. I don't know if this is a consequence of the controller (I doubt it, Amazon/Sony would do better), the size of the pixels (smaller pixels switch slower for some reason, perhaps the small traces prevent higher current that can switch things faster), manufacturing (faster switching is too expensive to make an 800x600 screen), or just perception (since the elements are so large it's not noticeable like when you change small blocks of text).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Not possible. While e-ink is sometimes used for general purpose displays (Amazon Kindle), for specialized applications its much cheaper if the e-ink can only represent compositions of static images in fixed positions, toggled on or off. Kind of like the difference between a modern LCD monitor and the LCD on a Nintendo Game & Watch-type game.
-- listen to interesting music, support independent radio... WPRB
Great. The <blink> tag made it to real life!
Why?? Whyyyyyyyy........??? ;)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
That's not an eye...
1995 called - they want their tag back.
> In the howitworks they seem to have 3 shades: white, black, and grey.
Unlike e-books, which apparently also have 3 shades: light grey, dark grey, and grey.
If the internet has done one thing for me, it has killed whatever curiosity I had to go look at new shock images.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
And they already know how to make flat paper speakers so they damned things will be talking whenever somebody is in range.
If they had video cameras, they'd be vandal resistant too.
"Watch Big Brother! Tonight of ABC! Watch Big Brother Tonight on ABC! Mr Morris, please do not touch this advert, it is the property of Orwell Advertising Inc. Mr Morris, video of the incident has been sent to law enforcement"
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
When I first read the Engadget post about the magazine being available I knew I would be driving around all day to find a copy that I could hack. I finally got a few copies and ripped one to shreds as soon as I got home.
Firstly, they did not use the active matrix version of the E-Ink display. It is a segmented version. This means that you can not make it do kindle like things. You must use the existing segments. The magazine contains two of these 2x5" displays. The cover display has 11 segments while the inside display has 3. They are both black and 'white' (aka grey) displays although several shades seem possible by varying the switch voltage timing. The color areas are created with a transparent overlay that, of course, is always present.
(Note: These probably do not match the CN1 and CN2 pin outs)
COVER DISPLAY SEGMENTS
1. "THE 21ST CENTURY"
2. "BEGINS"
3. 1st box after "BEGINS"
4. 2nd box after "BEGINS"
5. 3rd box after "BEGINS"
6. Both boxes (left and right) of "NOW"
7. "NOW"
8. The circle arrow
9. Bottom box 1
10. Bottom box 2
12. Bottom box 3
INNER DISPLAY SEGMENTS
1. Left side + 2 of 6 'wheel' segments on both 'wheels'
2. Middle + 2 of 6 'wheel' segments on both 'wheels'
3. Right side + 2 of 6 'wheel' segments on both 'wheels'
The cover display uses a 12 line ribbon connector while the inner display uses a 6 line ribbon with only 4 lines that are completed. One line on each display is a common connection while the others are simple on/off lines.
THE ELECTRONICS
The circuit board is very simple with only a few components. There are six CR2016 3V batteries, 2 connectors, 2 HEF4094BT 8 stage shift-and-store bus register chips, 1 12F629 Flash based 8bit CMOS microcontroller, 26 resistors, 2 capacitors and 3 transistors. The 12F629 controls 3 transistors that drive the STROBE, DATA and CLOCK pins, at 15v, of the HEF4094BTs. The HEF4094BTs are connected in a cascade fashion to provide 16 latching registers that directly drive the EInk displays.
WHAT DOES IT ALL DO?
The Batteries:
5 of the 6 batteries (B1-B5) are connected in series to provide the 15v driver voltage that is used to change the segments from black to white and back. The other battery (B6) supplies the 3 volts needed to run the microcontroller. The B1-B5 series and B6 both share a common ground.
The PIC
U1 is the Microcontroller. This device controls the sequence of the changes.
Pin 1 is Vdd (+3vdc).
C1 is used as a noise filter for the power.
Pin 2 is not used.
Pin 3 is not used.
Pin 4 is used for initial programming only.
Pin 5 drives Q3 through R5.
This drives the U3 and U3 STROBE (STR) lines causing the shift register data to be stored in the storage register.
Pin 6 drives Q2 through R3.
This drives the U2 and U3 CLOCK (CP) lines which allows serial programming of each register bit prior to storage.
Pin 7 drives Q1 through R1.
This drives the U2 DATA (S) line. U3 Data is connected to the O's (PIN 10) of U2 which is a serial output.
pin 8 is Vss(GND).
The Transistors
Q1 drives the DATA (D) line of U2 and is driven by U1 Pin 7.
Q2 drives the CLOCK (CP) lines of U2 and U3 and is driven by U1 Pin 6.
Q3 drives the STROBE (STR) lines of U2 and U3 and is driven by U1 pin 5.
Q1-Q3 base pins are connected to common ground.
R1,3,5 are used for current limiting to protect U1 outputs.
R2,4,6 are pull-up resistors for Q1-3 causing
the output to be 15V when off and ground when on. C3 is a noise filter for the pull-up power rail.
The Shift Registers
U1 and U2 drive the displays. They are programmed by U1 via a serial bus. The parallel outputs we'll look at from the perspective of the CN1 and CN2 connectors. These work as a marching train of bits. When the clock goes HI all bits are shifted right and the first one is set the whatever DA