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OpenInkpot: free software for e-book readers

“PDF files are handled by OI’s own locoPDF and madeye is a
simple viewer for images. A sound player application for audio
books will join the OI software collection soon. History

“The initial motivation for OpenInkpot was the limited use of
the original software that Debian hackers Mikhail Gusarov and
Yauhen Kharuzhy found on their newly acquired Hanlin V3. They found
it too slow and its software clunky. E.g., there was no way to
adjust the PDF viewer’s zoom and the bookshelf couldn’t handle
Cyrillic or other non-ASCII characters in file names.

“Because of that, the V3 became the only supported device of the
first public 0.1 OpenInkpot release in August 2008. Mikhail says
they achieved most of their goals for the V3. OI supports more
formats and is faster to display and turn pages, although the more
complex user interface of OI eats up some of the speed improvements
to the original firmware. [OI page]

“Right now, the team is busy porting OI to a second hardware
platform for the upcoming 0.2 release, the Hanvon N516. Both V3 and
N516 are available inexpensively under various brand names around
the world. Intrigued by OI, your author quickly found an online
shop based in his country and, a few days later, the original
firmware of his brand new N516 didn’t survive more than 30 minutes
before it got overwritten with a development snapshot of OI.”

Complete Story

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