Gaming GBA as ebook reader

[eadmaster]

2 questions:
- is there an ebook reader for GBA with scalable fonts?
- how does the GBA non-backlit LCD compare to recent e-ink displays? do they provide much better contrast/reflection?

 

[FAST6191]

I would suggest a PSP for this if you must go in for a games console to read books on. I did quite a few books this way and it is was not bad.

Scalable. Not sure actually, more importantly it is probably the difference between 12 characters on a screen and 16 characters on a screen if it did. That said other than http://filetrip.net/gba-downloads/homebrew/download-dan-cotters-ebook-advance-10-f22900.html and http://www.mqp.com/fun/gb_dnld.htm (you might have originally seen it as http://bookreader.co.uk/ ) I did not really do much with bookreaders. However I did reread several of the Terry Pratchett discworld books via them.

Screen wise. I have not seen a recent e-ink display (a kind a couple of years old was the last thing I played with at any length). I do not really care about screens (I use an original DS, a PSP 1000, a backlit SP, a nasty old laptop with more bright spots than I can count and do not mind any of them) and my eyes are better than 20/20 so I might not be the best person to ask on this.

I think in short I have to say the GBA is a terrible media machine in every regard save perhaps a picture slideshow or if you got a play yan or a radio addon.

 

[tbgtbg]

- how does the GBA non-backlit LCD compare to recent e-ink displays?

IMO, GBA non-backlit LCD's compare terribly to pretty much anything else around. Even an original brick Gameboy is easier to see in my experience.

 

[BORTZ]

I would suggest the lite, DSi, or DSi XL. probably the XL. I read all of the lord of the rings books on a DS lite. Pretty enjoyable actually. Not to mention it feels like a book too haha.

 

[thaddius]

Back in '03 I would read using Dan Cotter's eReader software for the GBA. It takes .txt files and doesn't have scalable fonts, but what you can do is change the colour of the font and background to suit your contrast needs. I found that black text on a yellow background worked well in bright conditions (outside in daylight) and dark red text on black was great for low light conditions (at night while I'm in bed). I enjoyed using it thoroughly with the GBA SP, GB Micro, and GBA SP2 (backlit version) models. Not for everyone, but it worked very well for me before getting a Kindle/Smart Phone.

 

[eadmaster]

In the past i've read a few books using Pogoshell and this book reader.
I've found the text is still quite readable despite the low resolution and the small chars.
Actually i'm interested in comparing the old GBA with recent e-ink readers, since they both have reflective displays...

 

[DanTheManMS]

Scalable. Not sure actually, more importantly it is probably the difference between 12 characters on a screen and 16 characters on a screen if it did. That said other than http://filetrip.net/gba-downloads/homebrew/download-dan-cotters-ebook-advance-10-f22900.html and http://www.mqp.com/fun/gb_dnld.htm (you might have originally seen it as http://bookreader.co.uk/ ) I did not really do much with bookreaders. However I did reread several of the Terry Pratchett discworld books via them.

Thank you for that. I never knew what happened to bookreader.co.uk site until your post here. I used that GBA Book Reader program to read the entirety of the 6th Harry Potter book several years ago (much more enjoyable with white text on a black background). I even abused the MIDI capabilities of MakeBook to have a "book" of classic Zelda MIDI files since there really wasn't any other good MIDI player for the GBA at the time outside of Pogoshell.

At one point in time I made an extremely tiny 3x5 font file for this GBA Book Reader program, intended for packing the absolute most amount of legible text on the screen as possible. Somehow I still have this file. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59972490/GBAandDS/smallwhite2.gbf