GoKawiilI was planning to build an e-ink display when I came across the Xteink X3 online. Somewhere in the fine print, it said the thing was fully programmable.
I was sold.
When it arrived, I liked how flat it was. It felt solid in my hand. I started adding things to the CrossPoint firmware: a different boot animation, dice I could roll by shaking the reader, a LinkedIn QR code for SF networking events.
But getting stuff onto it was tedious. I had to join its hotspot and open a little upload website in my browser.
Yuck.
While looking for a nicer way to send things to it, a thought struck me. If it looks like paper, it should act like paper.
I should be able to print on it.
What makes a printer a printer?
I wanted to open something on my MacBook, press Print, and pick the Xteink. That meant finding out what my computer expected to find at the other end.
I ended up in the Internet Printing Protocol, or IPP. It lets a computer ask a printer what it supports, submit a document, and ask what happened to the job. The messages travel over HTTP. An operation such as Get-Printer-Attributes asks about capabilities; Print-Job sends the work.
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