What about a laptop made of wood? We made one!

It has no delete key. Where the delete key should be, the keyboard says, “Keep Going”. It has no internet connection. The chassis is made mostly of bamboo. It has a large E Ink screen and could run for months on a single charge. It is a writer’s dream machine.

I present to you all on Steemit, this:

This wooden laptop was lovingly hand-crafted (and CNC routed) by the talented @lenskonig based on a design we created together:

Modern laptops are distracting. That is clear enough. It's impossible for most people to write or think anything meaningful, because modern computer-use involves constant bombardment from a sprawling hell of pop-up notifications.

The author Johnathan Franzen has the same opinion, once writing:

“It’s doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction”

So, @lenskonig and I decided to help society find salvation from this modern disease. We built this wooden laptop made mostly of bamboo, with an E Ink display, no internet access, and a single app: A minimalist word processor in which you can only type forward.

Yes, you can only type forward. No delete key. Momentum is the thing; editing is for cowards.

Well, technically, our idea is that you edit later on a full-blown computer.

Here are some more images of the prototype:

Our project met a stumbling block though. We can't find an engineer who is able to connect an E Ink display to a low-power microprocessor and keyboard. And so, beautiful though she is, the distraction-free wooden-laptop remains a lonely prototype.

I feel that @lenskonig's work on this machine is extraordinary. The detailing on our prototype is optical nirvana. Perhaps we will return to this project one day soon, if the stars align.