Thread: So, did companies give up on two page devices?
View Single Post
Old 07-30-2013, 07:31 AM   #41
Rev. Bob
Wizard
Rev. Bob ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Rev. Bob ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Rev. Bob ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Rev. Bob ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Rev. Bob ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Rev. Bob ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Rev. Bob ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Rev. Bob ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Rev. Bob ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Rev. Bob ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Rev. Bob ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Rev. Bob's Avatar
 
Posts: 1,760
Karma: 9918418
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: Here on the perimeter, there are no stars
Device: Kobo H2O, iPad mini 3, Kindle Touch
Quote:
Originally Posted by speakingtohe View Post
The screen is possibly the biggest part with the circuitry to drive it. If you only have one processor and one battery you would need additional circuitry/wiring between the two which would be across the hinged part and susceptible to breakage. No hinge? Then one large screen with a dual page display is what you have got.
Not necessarily. In theory, you could have the hinge behave as a port, just by using round contact "strips" instead of standard pins. That way, the two halves are always in contact, regardless of the hinge's position...yet there's no special wiring or complex circuitry. It's just a matter of thinking in three dimensions. After all, look at how few metal connections even a SATA interface uses...

As for keeping the strips in contact, some small magnets might do the trick, like what Pebble uses to attach their USB charging cable to their watch. Assign a couple of the central strips to carry power, and that's taken care of. As for the actual communication...isn't this a pretty low-bandwidth application anyway? During normal reading, you should be able to build the next screen well before the user's ready for it; it's only a matter of sending the new image while waiting for the page-turn signal and then sending that "okay, NOW" message when the signal's received. I definitely see this as more of a master/slave than peer/peer device, though. There's just no need to duplicate much of the hardware beyond the screens themselves.

Granted, I'd prefer a "pull-out" screen where you've got a second screen physically on top of the first, and you just release a latch to allow one to slide out and dock into its new position...but a clamshell's a much easier place to start, and has the inherent benefit of protecting the screens during travel.
Rev. Bob is offline   Reply With Quote