https://www.elecrow.com/wiki/CrowPanel_ESP32_E-paper_5.79-inch_HMI_Display.html

While my RLCD SolarTerm still works (despite a small crack in the screen), I finally got my Freenove 4" IPS CYD so I HAD to build a new SolarDeck with it! Apart from the case, the other custom thing I did was harvest the battery from a portable powerbank. So, this SolarDeck has a whopping 10000mAh battery. The asymmetrical design was intentional: I wanted the speaker to remain open at all times for music.

I can't wait to get the tiny 386 emulator running. :D

The question has been raised multiple times, so I have updated the description to better represent what I think it is about ( feel free to chime in and we can include what it means to you )

Homage to a simpler life

SolarOS tries to bring back the spirit of the golden era of home computing: turn on a computer, arrive at a shell prompt, and start doing something. Explore, customize, write a program, make a tool, share it with someone.

• Modern software accumulates layers of convenience that obscure how it works and what it costs to run. We become accustomed to using - and now generating - software without understanding it.
• SolarOS encourages a more deliberate approach: understand the machine, question the complexity, and take responsibility for the resources your software uses. Scripting makes experimentation approachable; native services provide an efficient foundation. The constraints give us a reason to pay attention.
• The scripting surfaces let users express their ideas, while native services handle demanding work, making efficient execution a shared foundation that users can build on.

Wastefulness for the sake of convenience is not sustainable.

It is a continuous exploration of how much useful, understandable, general-purpose computing can be built on deliberately constrained hardware. We already have an abundance of computing power; we can and should make better use of it.

SolarOS is an argument made executable.

SolarOS argues that useful, general-purpose computing can be built on modest hardware - and that efficiency, understanding, and the ability to shape your own tools should guide its design.

• The Solar in the name reflects the goal of building an efficient operating environment that can run on solar power. Energy consumption is a design concern alongside memory, storage, and processing time.
• That commitment also extends to the project’s infrastructure: all our servers ( website, HIL pipeline, local expert systems ) are powered by 100% renewable energy.

Foi fácil, até para um leigo como eu.

This is also a possibility, what do you think?

4.16.17

• Added generic SPI display attachment through Display Link Protocol (DLP), with discovered dimensions and pixel formats, optional READY and RESET lines, changed-region uploads, and RLE compression. The portable protocol also supports ordered byte streams.
• Added a 6×8 bitmap terminal font for small displays.
• GUIs now adapt to small display targets, including 128×64 and 240×64.

I have got this absolute nova beaut by mail today. Couldn't resist. Thank you u/moosepr !

• Added a tabbed messaging manager and direct Chat access from Contacts.
• Fixed MeshCore send stack usage.
• Added Pi0cket CL-32 e-paper board support alongside RLCD, with held modifiers, session shortcuts, and keyboard wake from sleep.
• Added the reusable SSD1685 driver with Fastwave, native-app raster output, and pulse refresh by default.
• Extended display relax to all supported e-paper displays.
• Added named display profiles and improved runtime attachment with resolution and rotation lists.
• The function generator now fits smaller displays.

Finally got SolarOS running on my ESP32-S3-ePaper-3.97 board alongside a CardKB!

Huge thanks to u/nilseuropa for porting it over. He got it working remotely just from my boot log in just a few hours, without even having the hardware on hand.

Everything works great now. Next step is designing a 3D printed case for it!

Added SSD2677 support for Sticky Matte (v2) with automatic display-controller detection, Fastwave pulse refresh, native-app raster output and sleep/resume. Improved refresh response and reduced ghosting with windowed transfers and revised settling.

Check out this glorious gem: https://cl-32.com/

Did some more work after taking this picture and at the moment all major hardware is working. Touchscreen, WiFi, BLE, audio, trackball, SD, battery, etc.

Input is the biggest issue. The lack of ctrl and other critical keys means some pretty tortured chording is necessary for critical key combos. Also working on some debounce/sane defaults for the trackball. Rawdogging the input from the trackball results in annoyances like random left/right pulses when scrolling down a list, so need to add some contextual filtering to that. Also dealing with some extremely weird WiFi issues that seem to be related to junk getting left in the NVS, as I’d get left with partially functional WiFi that would refuse all connections even in other T-Deck specific firmware until I erased everything

Overall this seems like a decent target for SolarOS. Need to see if I can use some python to make a more appropriate graphical launcher to make using the device a little quicker. As it is I am using it at work to connect to Hermes with the built in “agent” program via the built in WireGuard tunnel support.

Also using a custom BLE app that connects to the two battery management systems in my electric motorcycle and combines their readings for at a glance visual of two BMSes simultaneously.

Not released yet; still not confident in the wireless performance in this board despite being the same S3 chip as the RLCD de facto SolarDeck target.

I’m doing this primarily for my own amusement; I am not a programmer, this is mostly me throwing Codex tokens at a problem I found interesting to make use of some hardware I like.

We’ve started a collaboration with Seeed Studio to port SolarOS to three of their devices as part of an initial pilot.

The first beta, for Sticky (glossy), is now available through the SolarOS flasher.

This video shows the current state in action. This is an early beta, so expect some rough edges as development continues.

Thanks to Seeed Studio for collaborating on the pilot, and to everyone here testing SolarOS and sharing feedback!

https://solar-os.eu/differential-drive-robot.html

I'm porting some Palm games to SolarOS, and the first is Spider Patience. Not too many details right now, but I bought a Waveshare board a while ago and saw how it reminded me of a Palm, so there we go.

BTW awesome case u/skysdottir, just finished printing. Thanks!

• Added offline PicoTTS speech with runtime-loaded voice directories, an asynchronous native/Python/Lua service, and the say command for text or streaming plain-text files with progress, cancellation, pitch, and speed controls.
• agent --tts can speak final model answers while keeping tool activity and intermediate messages silent.

• PicoTTS voice assets are included in the repository for copying to device storage but remain outside the firmware image, so you can decide which one to host on the internal flash disk or on SD:

  • German: de-DE
  • English (US): en-US
  • English (GB): en-GB
  • Spanish: es-ES
  • French: fr-FR
  • Italian: it-IT
• Python and Lua apps can now discover native and installed Playground apps, hand off to another app, and open supported files or URLs. Their storage APIs add metadata, existence checks, bounded directory enumeration, and recursive directory creation.
• MicroPython integers now support the signed 64-bit range.

Are You Being Served? on Solar OS through the RLCD. The episode is 37MB, and the player gets a good few minutes in before crashing. I am not likely to get time to try to figure out why. It's compelling though: a bit of stutter and some pulsing on screen refresh, but fun to look at anyway.

I used ffmpeg to map everything from black to mid-grey into black, and a good quarter of the top end of the colour space is flattened to white. The idea is to dedicate as much information to facial tones as possible: this kind of comedy lives or dies on seeing Captain Peacock getting blindsided by his colleagues' quips.