alt Hacker NewsDisplay connected to the microcontroller instead of the Linux SoC is an interesting choice
Actually, putting all of this powerful hardware into a custom aluminum enclosure with gorilla glass and then using a 6-bit low resolution grayscale display is a weird choice. I guess they were going for a certain grayscale low-fi vibe?
The "needs verification" and "needs clarification" lines are weird. Like they asked someone (or ChatGPT?) to review some docs and post something, but forgot to review it first.
Replies
entropicdrifter • yesterday at 10:25 PM
Re:choice of display, I'm betting it's for power saving. If you need a better display you can use the HDMI port or DisplayPort USB-C port and just hook it right up to a monitor/TV
➕ show 2 replies
PunchyHamster • today at 12:00 AM
[dead]
> Display connected to the microcontroller instead of the Linux SoC is an interesting choice
There's a comment at the bottom about that. Quoting the response:
> From the Linux side, it's a standard framebuffer and keyboard that applications interact with as usual. However, our connection allows the MCU to intercept them and overlay additional content — for example, if the CPU hangs, we can still show a menu on the display and respond to button presses, say for a reboot. This also lets us have a low-power mode with the display still on.
Which sounds reasonable.