logoalt Hacker News

How to build a printer

197 pointsby cat-whispereryesterday at 9:22 PM38 commentsview on HN

Comments

ValdikSStoday at 1:21 AM

>penguin would shrink the result to fit its screen. >I declared A5 and Letter paper, media type stationery, and an output bin called face-up.

You can (and should!) define exact dimensions of your screen in `media-size-supported`. It will probably be a non-standard IPP name, that's why you should define that in `media-supported` as `om_NNNmmxYYYmm` or `oe_NNNinxYYYin`

That way you don't need to scale the incoming data, the PC will format it exactly to the dimensions of the screen.

Both PWG Raster and Apple Raster support 1-bit-per-pixel mode (instead of 8-bit-per-pixel you use), that's why the input could be 8 times less in size. Use `print-color-mode-{supported,default}=bi-level` instead of `monochrome` for that. And also tune `urf-supported`'s `W` option, use `W1` for this case.

The screen/dithering could be ass in 1-bit mode, see https://github.com/OpenPrinting/libcupsfilters/pull/160 where I added more dithering options (Linux-only though, Apple seems to abandon their CUPS).

show 2 replies
alternativeworltoday at 1:57 AM

Very cool. I was expecting to learn about the ins and outs of ink, printheads etc but instead learned "How to build a paper that acts like a printer" which turned out much more entertaining.

show 1 reply
ks2048today at 12:29 AM

Good job, but I’m left wanting to know how to build a printer.

show 2 replies
jarbootyesterday at 11:24 PM

This is amazing!!! It just makes sense. And its just how you would want to use a e reader.

show 1 reply
greazytoday at 12:36 AM

I don't understand the purpose. What am I missing?

The author "prints" to the eink display. Why not load say the pdf directly?

show 2 replies
joshmarinaccitoday at 12:23 AM

I love the concept, but I wonder why he wasn’t printing to PDF. Can this device not render PDFs?

show 3 replies
NDlurkertoday at 12:44 AM

Very cool. I'll be updating to this fork

show 1 reply
andyfilms1yesterday at 11:20 PM

We finally have PADDs from Star Trek!

show 1 reply
sho_hntoday at 12:00 AM

This is a fantastic idea!

stavrosyesterday at 11:41 PM

I've been seeing the Xteink a lot lately. Should I get an X3 or an X4? I don't really know why I want it, but I have an eInk addiction, so I just need it.

show 1 reply
Brian_K_Whiteyesterday at 10:42 PM

Outstanding! This is so...correct.

phoenixtaotoday at 3:32 AM

[dead]