Raspberry Pi e-paper Calendar Brings Retro Mac Charm to Your Desk

This Mac-inspired Raspberry Pi project comes to us from John Calhoun, the maker and mastermind behind EngineersNeedArt. Today we’re sharing a sleek Pi-powered desk calendar project he’s created known as the SystemSix. This custom desk calendar displays a plethora of information every day; with a layout that resembles old-school 1980s Mac OS graphics.

SystemSix is a Raspberry Pi-powered device that outputs calendar data and more to an e-ink display. It’s housed in a custom stand that resembles an old Apple Macintosh all-in-one; a classic design used for over a decade. Every day, the information displayed is presented in a randomized layout; using assets that resemble the user interface of the Mac System software. The icons change and windows move location; each of them showing data for things like weather, date information or upcoming events from a predefined calendar.

The project is powered by a Raspberry Pi 3; but there’s no reason you couldn’t use a newer model like a Pi 4 or even something smaller like a Raspberry Pi Zero. Whatever you can get your hands on at the moment is worth trying. The display is a 5.83-inch Waveshare e-paper screen which Calhoun has mounted inside of a laser-cut acrylic stand.

If you want to recreate this Raspberry Pi project yourself, check out the full project breakdown over at EngineersNeedArt. Not only does Calhoun explain how the project goes together but he also digs into the design process. There’s also a thorough GitHub provided for anyone interested in exploring the source code.

Read more: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-epaper-retro-mac