HackerTubewatch
Surprise me
Frame from Nook simple touch e-ink games Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

Nook simple touch e-ink games

vasilievi4
Demos
YouTube
Cited on HN 3 times, 2015–2019, never outright recommended score 0
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN cites it as proof that e-ink screens can be pushed to surprisingly high refresh rates, supporting arguments about interactive e-ink uses.

A brief clip of a Nook Simple Touch e-ink reader running PlayStation 1 games through an emulator with a hacked fast refresh rate.

“Nook's screen can be coerced into doing some surprising stuff” (HN, 2019)

3 citations · Demos · partly dated

3 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@simcop2387 Sep 2015 Cites it
on HN thread Raspberry Pi touch display
No idea about the actual numbers, but people have gotten ps1 games working on e-ink displays. I'd think that'd indicate it's probably perfectly doable for text editing. [this video]
E-ink display running games suggests text editing is feasible.
@bazinga888 Apr 2017 Cites it
on HN thread Lego Macintosh Classic with e‑paper display
I believe it's just due to the niche application space. 2012 era Nook eink reader playing a game with hacked refresh: [this video] The tech can do better, but as I've heard it told, the market for it has been eink readers. Who needs to refresh their book at 120hz? is the thinking. Folks that want to game or have a "retina" resolution buy a tablet proper. Upping refresh has steep power costs too. Ereader marketers like their "recharge once every 6-8 weeks!" message.
Old Nook e-ink reader playing a game with hacked refresh.
@aasasd May 2019 Cites it
on HN thread Alibaba’s UC Browser is dominating in markets with lower-end smartphones (2018)
Read more
Its ‘Mini’ incarnation—or something like that—also dominated on my e-ink Nook Simple Touch by the virtue of working the best on a weak machine with a screen of limited capabilities (grayscale, infrared touchscreen aka no multitouch), under Android 2.1. And I was using it until about three years ago. IIRC Opera Mini also worked on that, but not much else. Guess it's time for me to mourn again that there are no e-ink devices with normal modern Android—the screen is noticeably easier on the eyes, even with the optional ‘ambient’ backlight (emitted from the sides, diffused through the glass). And the screen consumes little power, so the battery can be way smaller: Nook is lighter than my current phone despite having a bigger screen. As for the refresh rate, Nook's screen can be coerced into doing some surprising stuff: [this video]
Nook screen can be coerced into surprising refresh rates.

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

Keyboard shortcuts

/
Search
j k
Next / previous video
r
Surprise me
l
Like (video page)
w
Watch later (video page)
?
This help
Esc
Close