Nook Simple Touch with a External Keyboard

You can plug an external USB keyboard to a Nook simple Touch and type to make your e-ink reader a tool to write documents. I really love e-ink screens as they are easy on your eyes for long writing sessions.

You will need:

  • A rooted Nook Simple Touch.
  • An OTG cable adapter.
  • A cheap external keyboard .
  • ADB Command line tools from: https://developer.android.com/studio#downloads
  • Two binary images: uImage and uRamdisk that you can download from here: https://forum.xda-developers.com/nook-touch/general/nook-glow-multitouch-usbhost-files-t2846867
  • USB Mode Utility apk from http://temblast.com/download/UsbMode-1.7a.apk

How to do it

Install ADB

I am usign Mac here so the file I downloaded is: sdk-tools-darwin-4333796.zip

Unzip the sdk tools to a folder, lets name it adb but it could be any name.

In the same folder copy the two images files uImage and uRamdisk and the USB Mode apk UsbMode-1.7a.apk

Connect the Nook Simple Touch to the computer and from the adb folder type:

./adb shell
# mount -o rw,remount rootfs /
# mkdir /boot
# mount -t vfat /dev/block/mmcblk0p1 /boot
# exit

./adb
./adb shell
./adb push uImage /boot/
./adb push uRamdisk /boot/
./adb install UsbMode-1.7.apk
./adb reboot


By doing the instructions: ./adb push uImage /boot/ and ./adb push uRamdisk /boot/ you just replaced the boot files and with the UsbMode apk you will open the Host mode through the usb port to use the external keyboard.

How to type

  • Unplug the Nook Simple Touch from the computer.
  • Plug the external keyboard.
  • Open the UsbMode Utility application.
  • Click on Host.
  • The green Led lights up.
  • Open a Text Editor, I have installed Jota.
  • Type :D
  • When you are finish typing, click on Peripheral.
  • The green red light is off.
  • Unplug the keyboard.

Watch the whole thing working



Comments

  1. Thanks for this. I am having a hard time getting past the point where I enter "./adb shell". When I do that the command line just gives me "-bash: ./adb: No such file or directory".

    ReplyDelete
  2. It seems that you are not in the right path, where did you unzip the file?
    If you are on Linux or Mac you should see it on:

    /Users/yourusername/adb

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hello, I'm currently trying to do this on my Windows PC. I am having trouble with past typing "./adb shell." When I type this, I get the error "'.' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file."
    Assuming that "./adb" is probably just the directory, I also tried just inputting "shell," which yielded similar results.

    ReplyDelete

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