I backed the Myst 25 anniversary kick starter last year and finally got my package in early March. While the function of showing the videos is a neat feature I am hoping that eventually more features could be added or at least the linking sound changed, as I prefer the riven version. Ideally I would like to eventually move the internals to a smaller myst linking book as the overall size of the kick starter version is just too large for my taste (and shelves)...
It has been a couple months now since the first books started arriving for people so I am a bit surprised no one else has posted anything yet about the internals. So my curiosity got the better of me as usual and I went about carefully pulling out the screen insert which is only held in by three strips of double sided tape.
I would have liked to carefully cut a flap to view the insides but my worry was about cutting wires or something else so I went with the safer but more destructive option and carefully pealed the whole back up. The paper has a plastic layer on top that I was able to peal off and save in case I wanted to glue it back on, but the paper layer below that is glued to the foam backing and mostly just tore off. However, I am happy to report for anyone else interested in doing this that with the back carefully removed it all still sits nicely in the book and from the front you cannot tell anything changed. Pressure fit still holds everything quite nicely, but there can be a slight movement when pressing the lower button as it is not secured by anything now. That said some new double side tape would easily fix it.
The insides are pretty simple like you would expect. The buttons all seem to be separately mounted in the backer foam with wires running out to them. The yellow circle is the small speaker, which I feel could easily be upgraded as there is plenty of room. The battery is a 800mha lipo battery that is glued in place but with some removal effort could be replaced (soldering required). A wire runs out to usb connector on the side. The screen is glued in place below the main board with a ribbon cable running up to it.
It has been a couple months now since the first books started arriving for people so I am a bit surprised no one else has posted anything yet about the internals. So my curiosity got the better of me as usual and I went about carefully pulling out the screen insert which is only held in by three strips of double sided tape.
I would have liked to carefully cut a flap to view the insides but my worry was about cutting wires or something else so I went with the safer but more destructive option and carefully pealed the whole back up. The paper has a plastic layer on top that I was able to peal off and save in case I wanted to glue it back on, but the paper layer below that is glued to the foam backing and mostly just tore off. However, I am happy to report for anyone else interested in doing this that with the back carefully removed it all still sits nicely in the book and from the front you cannot tell anything changed. Pressure fit still holds everything quite nicely, but there can be a slight movement when pressing the lower button as it is not secured by anything now. That said some new double side tape would easily fix it.
The insides are pretty simple like you would expect. The buttons all seem to be separately mounted in the backer foam with wires running out to them. The yellow circle is the small speaker, which I feel could easily be upgraded as there is plenty of room. The battery is a 800mha lipo battery that is glued in place but with some removal effort could be replaced (soldering required). A wire runs out to usb connector on the side. The screen is glued in place below the main board with a ribbon cable running up to it.
The main board looks like it is based around a ATJ229R2. Which appears to be a processor designed for digital photo frame use, interestingly it lists external SD card and WIFI support is possible.
There is a Toshiba chip next to it which my guess would be is the memory chip (had trouble finding anything on it in Google). I expected it to be built in for cost and risk of falling out in shipping reasons but also means no easy way to expand storage which is pretty small for video storage.
Also seems to be quite a few unused pads around the board that could be used depending on how the ATJ229R2 is programed. I could not find anything with a quick Google search on this board design. I expect it is likely a reused digital picture frame design but could be more on the custom side. That said I suspect there is probably a way to reprogram it to do other things as it is based on COTS parts.
