I’ve attempted manner too many distraction-free writing units, from the Freewrite to an previous Brother typewriter. As a glutton for punishment, alternatively, I might simply construct the FeatherQuill whilst I’m trapped at house.
The FeatherQuill is a challenge via Cameron Coward, a author and {hardware} hacker who specializes in 3-D printing. The challenge is composed of a Raspberry Pi single-board pc, a touchscreen LCD, and a keyboard. He additionally added a collection of rechargeable batteries to chronic the article for 36 hours immediately.
“I write for a residing and spend maximum of my workday sitting in entrance of my desktop pc whilst churning out articles. I constructed FeatherQuill as a result of I sought after a lovely typing enjoy even if I’m out and about,” Coward wrote in a put up on Instructables.
The device makes use of a Raspberry Pi 0 W—a super-small model of the Raspberry Pi—and a 5-inch touchscreen LCD. He added a smaller mechanical keyboard after which 3-D revealed a case.
The consequences, as you’ll be able to see, are lovely bare-bones however enough for writers who’re used to a clean display screen. He makes use of an app known as WordGrinder as a phrase processing device and DietPi because the OS. DietPi is a smaller, much less power-hungry model of Linux that boots sooner than Raspbian, the board’s default OS.
“Boot time, from chronic to WordGrinder, is set 20 seconds,” wrote Coward.
Wordgrinder in truth works on Home windows and Mac OS if you wish to give it a take a look at, and it gives an excessively austere writing interface for the ones taking a look to “simply write.”
Curiously, Coward needed to print the case in two items and fasten them in combination, a artful manner of having across the dimension obstacles of his 3-D printer. Clearly, you’ll be able to additionally simply purchase the LCD and a Raspberry Pi 400 to create an identical {hardware}, however this DIY equipment continues to be inventive.
