Valve open source the Steam Machine e-ink screen so you can make your own
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That’s cool that they host their own repository. Maintaining their distance from Microsoft I guess haha.
I know what I’d like to see:

And the ‘countdown clock’ animation for when its booting games or loading in levels. I wouldnt even mind if it randomly scrolled fallout ads while your playing ‘sugar bombs’, ‘radaway’, etc.
The steam machine has an eink screen?
Well, it’s a convenient ereader, after all. Fits in any pocket.
They made a face panel with an e-ink display for their internal testing (display status, temps, speed etc). Said they would not sell it but they released how to make one yourself
While Valve will not be making and providing their own e-ink display for the Steam Machine, they have opened it up so anyone can now do it.
Quite literally the first sentence of the article. No, it has not. But there are now instructions to retrofit it with one.
May as well open it - I doubt the SM will be doing massive sales at current prices, so even fewer would have sprung for this add-on. Opening it up is at least good PR/marketing.
Why does the one on the picture look backlit?
Can’t you get backlit e-ink displays? Don’t kindles have them?
Yes, e-readers nowadays have a “frontlight”, a fiber optic mesh overlaid on top of the display. But the list of materials they provide doesn’t have anything that would provide this light.
Well, technically eink displays don’t have backlight but frontlight.
intensive studio lighting? e-ink is reflective so good enough front light makes them surprisingly bright.
You have to be a member of the secret photographer society before they’ll tell you. They are a secretive and judgmental bunch, saying things like “Hey! Get out of the frame, this is a professional photo shoot, not a photography tutorial. How did you even get in this studio? How would you like it if I randomly showed up at your job asking why you did the things you were doing?”
Turns out that last question is not a request for an info dump about my job.
Most of the screens you see on modern cases don’t have firmware for Linux. So good to see a modern one that does. Would make sense for this to be used on any of the Linux gaming boxes that are around.
Firmware shouldn’t care what OS the CPU is running as it’s doing its own thing, running on an embedded processor of some sort on the device.
Though it can be used to lock out unapproved software if it needs an encryption key or relies on an undocumented interface they only told their windows driver writers about.
So I’m not saying firmware can’t be used to lock linux out from being able to use certain hardware, just don’t believe them if they try to play it off as they would need to write a special linux version of the firmware to make it happen; it’s a deliberate lockout either via encryption or by making the information needed to implement it proprietary.
Though at least the latter case could be reverse engineered, especially if you can sniff the bus traffic.
They’re now calling it the “Inkterface” and there’s a good few things you’ll need to make it including:
- 1 x Adafruit ESP32 Feather with 2MB PSRAM.
- 1 x Adafruit eInk Breakout Friend.
- 1 x Adafruit 5.83” Monochrome eInk Panel.
- 13 x M2.5 x 5mm Pan Head Machine Screws.
- 4 x 1/4” x 1/4” x 3/16” Stepped Magnet SB443-OUT.
Funny how these days it’s so completely assumed every maker has a 3D printer that it doesn’t get mentioned, no more than instructions would mention anything as trivial as needing a screwdriver.
I don’t know much about electronic components. This is a diy kit with a esp32 board in it. Could you reflash with valve firmware and have it just work? Or would different aspect ratio of screen mean a slight change to a config or full reworking?
https://www.seeedstudio.com/TRMNL-7-5-Inch-OG-DIY-Kit-p-6481.html
Really cool of valve to do this and include a full tutorial.
Just about any other company would keep it closed and sell the accessory with proprietary software; then if that was not commercially viable, would just not release anything at all.
Too bad that this runs using a battery, would have been nice if the Steam Machine included some pogo pins I/O for that kind of thing.
Where did you see the battery? I don’t see one mentioned anywhere
IDGAF if Newell is a Epstein-class helo-pad yacht billionaire. Valve’s success is built on the recognition that customers are the source of success, rather than a resource to be extracted. Valve is bringing PC citizenship to console subjects. Just in time for the 4th of July.
IDGAF if Newell is a Epstein-class helo-pad yacht billionaire.
that’s the problem, you should give a fuck about this! as well as valve’s history of promoting gambling, and the superprofits they get by overcharging publishers (especially indie devs which don’t get the special reduced rates bigger publishers get). don’t overlook all of this because they run a cool platform you like!
(edited because my original reply was uselessly mean)
(edited because my original reply was uselessly mean)
Uhhhh…….hey buddy, we’re in a Lemmy thread. No need for anger even if you disagree. It’s a Lemmy thread. Nobody died. It’s far from being worthy of giving this level of anger over, when SOOOOOOOOO much worse shit to get mad about.
For example, our president is a pedophile surrounded in government by pedophile protectors.
It’s not a conspiracy that the largest companies ARE working together to make the rich richer while the common man gets less. The world now has a trillionaire. At no point is there any reason why anyone should have even 1/10th of that.
And the media is designed to keep us divided, and now CBS and CNN may as well be called state media, while Rupert Murdock (founder of Fox News) said something like “I realized I could make a lot of money by emotionally manipulating people based on racial bias. You can sell racism.”
And now we’re back here, in this Lemmy thread getting heated over publishing fees and gambling. Kinda gives you a scale.
And now we’re back here, in this Lemmy thread getting heated over publishing fees and gambling. Kinda gives you a scale.
yeah, it would be such a good world if that were our biggest problems
What a weird comment… Even in the part you quoted, they literally said they edited the comment to make it less mean.
This is a bunch of stuff that you can order from Adafruit, so idk where Steam comes into it.
Also the screen is 5.83” which is a yawner. It’s a drag that e-ink screens are still all so small. Wake me up when there’s an affordable 14 inch one or larger, that doesn’t take 20+ seconds to refresh. 1 second is tolerable. Motion video is not required.
Blame patents. E-Ink is under the thumb of one company and using patents they block any and all competition and thus most innovation.
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Being used to modern journalism I was not expecting even a link to schematics, but instead I was given list of all required components and even re-upload of a video showing how to assemble it. What a treasure this website is
Gamingonlinux and Steamdeckhq are the two sites I follow specifically for steam hardware news, and they’re both pretty good about providing source links and actual info.
Deck Ready is also a great YT channel about Steam news!
I hate it the most when it’s a link that looks like it will go to the source but it just goes to another, older, story on the same site.
gamingonlinux is not classic journalism. They are just a bunch of nerds loving what they do, which makes the website super awesome.
Similar for the Mac Mini:
I don’t know much about electronic components. This is a diy kit with a esp32 board in it. Could you reflash with valve firmware and have it just work? Or would different aspect ratio of screen mean a slight change to a config or full reworking?
https://www.seeedstudio.com/TRMNL-7-5-Inch-OG-DIY-Kit-p-6481.html
You’d probably have to significantly change the firmware - It would probably be easier to just program it to pull stuff using esphome
Do you guys think they will also open-source half-life 3 once it’s released?
Sweet. Now I just need a foundry in my garage.
A foundry for what? To 3d print the parts?
You can 3D print the screens and chips?
No, you can buy them. They didn’t design any screens and chips, they just bought parts and assembled them. And now they told you what parts to buy and how to assemble them.
Ah, so the parts aren’t open source then, just the design for this specific doodad
They’re off-the-shelf parts. That’s normal for open-source hardware
I wish I could make those at home