New DIY E Ink Display Project Shows Calvin and Hobbes Comic
There might be no dearth of DIY projects involving E Ink displays though here is one that is miles apart from the rest. Designed by Doctr_sbaitso, a hardcore Calvin and Hobbes fan, the project involves a digital display that shows a new Calvin and Hobbes comic every day. As Tom’s Hardware revealed, the project comprises of a Waveshare 5 x 7-inch monochrome E Ink display enclosed in a picture frame that makes the entire thing look nice and classy.
Making up the core of the device is a Raspberry Pi 4 though you can also pull it off with an even smaller board such as the Raspberry Pi Zero 2W given the extremely low power requirement of the entire setup. The Waveshare E Ink display is connected to the Raspberry Pi heart via a HAT driver. The E Ink display has a resolution of 800 480 pixels which makes the texts and images look sharp enough.
The project runs Raspberry Pi OS though a Python script is used to display a new Calvin and Hobbes comic every day. The script works to properly resize the comic to fit into the 800 x 480px frame. The script runs every day as a new comic is loaded and needs to be displayed properly.
What is nice with the project is that it just does not pick up a new Calvin and Hobbes comic randomly for displaying on the device. Rather, they are selected in the order they were released, which is a nice thing for anyone who wishes to follow the comic strip from the start. This will also give them the feel of following the comics as they were released in the newspaper. The comic ran from 1985 to 1995, which means plenty of material to keep you engaged for an entire decade.
Anyone who’d like to have more information on the project can visit the Reddit thread on this.
With a keen interest in tech, I make it a point to keep myself updated on the latest developments in technology and gadgets. That includes smartphones or tablet devices but stretches to even AI and self-driven automobiles, the latter being my latest fad. Besides writing, I like watching videos, reading, listening to music, or experimenting with different recipes. The motion picture is another aspect that interests me a lot, and I’ll likely make a film sometime in the future.
