I don't agree with you about color, but I would love to have an e-ink monitor for documentation and PDFs to augment my other other monitors.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13771203

I don't agree about the color either. Looking at color printouts don't give you the same feeling as a screen, so it isn't the color itself.

It is the brightness of the screen, with every pixel lit up, that is the difference. I think if there were color e-ink, it would be just fine and still help serve this same niche market.

It doesn't need to be full color even. Sixteen or sixty-four colors or so for maps, business graphics, headers, error indication, and syntax highlighting for programmers would be really nice. I'd have one screen a full-color LCD for when I need more than that, and do most of my editing and terminal work with a high resolution, less straining device.

I yearn for the old workstation of old that were just for work and couldn't be used for entertainment.

Huh? That is as simple as not installing any games on your computer, using GPUs like Quadros if you do CAD, and using quality components that don't have 1000 RGB LEDS all over them. This is not impossible to do.

so you don't get distracted by video or pretty articles. and it's an exclusive coding machine.

Ok so don't install a browser if you really can't control yourself from being distracted by the internet. Install a block list of all news sites, social media, and whatever sites you waste time on if you need to go online.

he says on Hacker News

There's an eink typewriter for that purpose - although I can't say that I've tried it -

getfreewrite.com

Based on most reviews I've seen, it's less useful than a $30 AlphaSmart Neo (which I own, and quite like)

not the best for coding tho. unless someone made an editor for it.

I'd buy one in a flash. Color is overrated, while the ability to work in sunlight and display an image when computer is turned off / sleeping would enable me to do things completely impossible before. Also, it would be cool if such monitor also worked as a standalone tablet/reader with long battery life. I'd be more willing to spend $700+ if it was dual-purpose.

I don't think there's that many programmers who never, ever deal with colours. An icon, a font change, and you need colour. Not to mention the fact that colours provide useful cues in general and improve productivity (syntax highlighting, coloured terminals, etc.).

I am systems developer working mostly in C++. I often make things with no user visible GUI, like libraries and algorithms. They wouldn't be able to pry my colored syntax highlighting from my cold dead hands.

emacs on my NeXT cube (which was B&W) used font highlighting. It worked pretty well.

I want someone to take the whole left by company like NeXT or Sun. the workstation but not PC space.

Color might be a distraction to you, but for me syntax highlighting speeds up my work significantly.

This should be good enough for syntax highlighting http://www.eink.com/display_products_triton.html

I meant video mostly. an color eink display would be good too.

I'll keep my color syntax highlighting. I like it.

You can achieve really nice looking syntax highlighting using only bold, _italic_ and several different scales of gray.

Differentiating between various grays seems like a waste of time when you could just use color

you could also say using color seems like a waste of time when you could just vary letterforms. e-ink is nicer for your eyes but expensive if you want color. how one goes about highlighting their code depends on a number of constraints; if you want a display that's easier on the eyes you might use methods other than color to highlight your code. it's not easier or harder or any more or less natural or anything.

me personally, i've always used color vary sparingly, if at all, because a bunch of highly contrasting colors ends up looking, to my eye, like vomit soup without really clarifying anything.