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. AnonymousDecember 23, 2020 at 8:59 AM

    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. MariaDecember 27, 2020 at 8:27 AM

    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. AnonymousNovember 26, 2021 at 6:37 PM

    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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