Broken Kindle 4 screen

[Salah]

So i got a kindle 4 with half of its screen working, but i'd like to use some software like vnc to see the whole screen on my pc, its using os 4.1.1 , wifi is working etc.
edit:
also would it be possible to tweak a button and make it rotate the screen when i press it ?

[PatrikLundin]

I wrote a thing that did this at one point, but I never wrote it up sufficiently to retrace my steps. Here's a few binaries I found though: http://www.nothisispatrik.com/remote.zip . It was (and is, though the kindle is in pieces at the moment) meant to have the file "bmb" in cgi-bin of the tiny webserver that came with the k3/k4 jailbreaks. When loading it (<IP>/cgi-bin/bmb) it grabs a copy from /dev/ of the screen, converts it to a .bmp and shoves it across along with a Content-type: image/bmp. The .html file is a rough-edged thing that shows it and some buttons linking to another cgi-bin file, fkey, which dunks the query string of anything calling it into the input device. Using that, I could emulate the keyboard and fiveway as well, essentially controlling it completely through a browser.

I tested it on a k3 and a few k4s (some were just motherboards, I was hoping to start using them as headless linuxes although unfortunately I could never get them to work without a battery) though, and I'm terribly sorry, my notes and experimental files are a total mess. I'll see if I find the source somewhere, it was compiled with that native c chain (tcc) someone posted. If I don't or if it's just as easy, it was a pretty quick and easy hack - the screen is readable in /dev in a fairly straightforward format so all that's needed is to convert it to anything viewable on the pc side (or do so on the pc side) and shove it out thought the web server or through some other port.

EDIT Here's a few sources http://www.nothisispatrik.com/sources.zip with some binaries, again, sorry that they're a mess. These look more like they spawn their own server on port 8080. I vaguely remember trying to do that and getting it to work sorta, but with it hanging if I accessed it too often before giving up on the whole thing.

[Salah]

Originally Posted by PatrikLundin

I wrote a thing that did this at one point, but I never wrote it up sufficiently to retrace my steps. Here's a few binaries I found though: http://www.nothisispatrik.com/remote.zip . It was (and is, though the kindle is in pieces at the moment) meant to have the file "bmb" in cgi-bin of the tiny webserver that came with the k3/k4 jailbreaks. When loading it (<IP>/cgi-bin/bmb) it grabs a copy from /dev/ of the screen, converts it to a .bmp and shoves it across along with a Content-type: image/bmp. The .html file is a rough-edged thing that shows it and some buttons linking to another cgi-bin file, fkey, which dunks the query string of anything calling it into the input device. Using that, I could emulate the keyboard and fiveway as well, essentially controlling it completely through a browser.

I tested it on a k3 and a few k4s (some were just motherboards, I was hoping to start using them as headless linuxes although unfortunately I could never get them to work without a battery) though, and I'm terribly sorry, my notes and experimental files are a total mess. I'll see if I find the source somewhere, it was compiled with that native c chain (tcc) someone posted. If I don't or if it's just as easy, it was a pretty quick and easy hack - the screen is readable in /dev in a fairly straightforward format so all that's needed is to convert it to anything viewable on the pc side (or do so on the pc side) and shove it out thought the web server or through some other port.

EDIT Here's a few sources http://www.nothisispatrik.com/sources.zip with some binaries, again, sorry that they're a mess. These look more like they spawn their own server on port 8080. I vaguely remember trying to do that and getting it to work sorta, but with it hanging if I accessed it too often before giving up on the whole thing.

Wow this looks amazing but when i tried i got this error

[root@kindle Apps]# ./bmb
./bmb: line 6: srjava.util.ArrayListx����a�
Isizexp
w: not found
./bmb: line 6: srjdbm.recman.BlockIo
                                      xpz�: not found
./bmb: line 6: �k
                  S: not found
./bmb: line 6: cannot open �

: no such file
./bmb: line 6: 


: not found
./bmb: line 6: cannot open �: no such file
./bmb: line 6: 
: not found
./bmb: line 6: 
�m
                  t
A��

?G
���7: not found
./bmb: line 6: 
                
��=�l
?�

rn
                                    
�
                                      
�
                                        
�
                                          ?�
                                            
�
                                              
�
                                                

A
ro
                                                         
�

                                                           �
                                                            
����w
ytNeeds: not found
./bmb: line 6: ��w�F: not found
./bmb: line 7: syntax error: "(" unexpected
[root@kindle Apps]#

[PatrikLundin]

Hmm.. Looks like it's not interpreting it as a binary and attempting to run it as a script. Not sure why that would happen, possibly corrupt file? If it actually should run in the situation you show, it'd jam a .bmp file to stdout though - it needs to be set up to run through a web server through the other files or the output moved back to the PC in some other way. As a test, "./bmb >1.bmp" should save a bitmap "1.bmp" containing a screenshot. But since it's complaining about errors on certain lines (in a compiled program) something else has likely gone wrong making it not recognize it.

[knc1]

Could it be the good ol' "Windows hides known extensions" strikes again?

Unless your Windows is installed to show known extensions, you can't tell the difference between files such as: bmp2 and bmp2.c

[PatrikLundin]

Nah, it's not even for windows - it runs on the kindle. So I guess if the prior was from running it on a computer (that isn't an arm6 based linux) yeah, that could be it, but the whole thing should run on the kindle. The server spawning version opens port 8080 and shoves a bitmap over it when accessed with a browser (from any os), so http://<kindles ip>:8080/ shows what is on the screen, the other ('bmb') just dumps a screenshot to stdout in the form of a .bmp file. I was using it with the little webserver that was there or came with the jailbreak, putting a script file in cgi-bin on the kindle that was just like 'echo Content-type: "image/bitmap\n" ; ./bmb'. I had way vaster plans for the whole whatever I was doing, it was mostly a convenience thing so I didn't have to reach over and look plus on some of the broken kindles or bare-bone motherboards (I bought some somewhere for like $2-$5 each, for K2/3/4 - hella deal for a functioning arm linux with wifi and a few gigs of space if they could function w/o battery) could be used. Kinda shelved the whole thing (hardware and all) which is why I'm answering super vaguely - if things calm down on some other projects they're expecting stuff on I'll try to dig out a board or kindle and see what exactly I was up to, wasn't anything complicated I just didn't write it up properly (if at all) since it was just a quick stepping stone to some much awesomer thing that would be worth posting about (I think, can't be sure since I have no idea what it was and I think later someone(s) else accomplished it separately).

[knc1]

Aw, but there are a lot of readers here who view the files the Kindle presents over the USB cable with a Windows PC.

It is the Viewer (not the Kindle) that hides known extensions.

[PatrikLundin]

Good point. Well, if there was confusion, none of this will do much of anything just placed on it - it has to be executed from the shell on the kindle in one way or another. Just dug out a K4 motherboard, but as it turns out my only K4 battery (itself kind of a mess) had been busted at some point. So I'll need to find my K3 supposing it has a battery or perhaps jailbreak one of the ones still in use. Though now I want to check a few things on this one since I have it out (I didn't have a way to talk to SPI devices (or be one) last time I had it out, nor did I have a serial interface, so I'm a little curious what this thing actually does do and say when it can't find a battery.

[Salah]

My screen is still half broken :/
Isnt there any file to edit and change the screen resolution to half?
I only see the upper half.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Salah

My screen is still half broken :/
Isnt there any file to edit and change the screen resolution to half?
I only see the upper half.

Give it up. The screen is broken and you are best to buy a replacement. Call Amazon first though. Maybe they can help with a discount as such. You have nothing to lose by calling.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Give it up. The screen is broken and you are best to buy a replacement. Call Amazon first though. Maybe they can help with a discount as such. You have nothing to lose by calling.

Yes -
TwoBob posted a "fix" for K4's that have only 1/2 the screen still working (a rather common failure).

Rarely used, you'll have to search for it among his posts.

[Salah]

Here is it:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=208842

[knc1]

Originally Posted by Salah

Here is it:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=208842

Yeah, that is the one I had in mind.

Note that the thread ends with the end of the work Twobob did on it, but no feed-back from any users of the utility.

So we don't know how effective it is in using only part of the screen, although I am sure that the code itself will run as he describes.

I am not sure after rereading the thread that it will turn a 600x800 display into 600x400 display (actually shrink what is displayed, rather than just move it around).

It might be useful to look through the posts by Geekmaster that Twobob links to in that thread also.

[kyutums]

I'm trying out the extension by Twobob, but (VERY noob here) I can't find the variables that need to be adjusted.

The runner.sh is:

#!/bin/sh
while :; do SCROLL=0; usleep 85000; OUTY=$(waitforkey | awk '{print substr($0,0,3)}'); if [ "$OUTY" == "191" ] ; then SCROLL=1; fi ;if [ "$OUTY" == "109" ] ; then SCROLL=1; fi ; if [ "$SCROLL" == "1" ] ; then usleep 150000; /mnt/us/extensions/scroller/bin/scroller $1 $2 $3 ; fi ; done

I don't which ones stand for ARG1, ARG2, etc. stated in https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...2&postcount=31

My problem is similar to Salah's, but I need to move my screen up (the bottom part of my Kindle is broken).

[knc1]

See the dollar amounts following the program name:

/mnt/us/extensions/scroller/bin/scroller $1 $2 $3

Their technical name is ARG1, ARG2, ...

That script that you quote (runner.sh) also accepts arguments (in same order) and when it is run the script processor will make the substitution for you.

The Kindles use Ash rather than Bash as the command line processor, which are basically the same, see:
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/abs-guide.pdf

Start at page 30, when you get to and complete the subject begun on page 36, you have the full answer.