# Slowboard > Dashboards for slow screens. Open software and open hardware that show calm, glanceable cards on screens that refresh rarely: e-paper first, and also e-readers, digital notebooks and desktop backgrounds. - Slowapps are small programs, in any language and packaged as OCI containers, that draw cards in four inks (black, white, yellow, red). Each app gets only the access it asks for: network, secrets, storage, memory. - slowhub runs the slowapps on a schedule and keeps their latest cards. It runs on the Slowboard itself or on a computer you already have. - slowd runs on the device. It owns the screen, the keys and the refresh timing, and pulls finished cards from the hub. Every card is drawn before a key is pressed, so the screen answers at once and then rests. - The Slowboard 1085 is the reference device: a Luckfox Lyra Zero W and a Waveshare 10.85" four-ink e-paper panel (1360 × 480) in a 3D-printed case with four keys. It shows three decks of cards side by side by default; a Slowboard can show any combination of slowapps. - Build one yourself (parts list, print files, setup guide), or join the list for a kit. ## Pages - [Slowboard 1085](https://slowboard.io/slowboards/1085/): the reference device, its keys and specifications - [Build one yourself](https://slowboard.io/build/): parts, print files and the build steps - [The kit](https://slowboard.io/kit/): join the list for a Slowboard kit - [Slowapps](https://slowboard.io/slowapps/): the apps on the shelf - [Make a slowapp](https://slowboard.io/slowapps/make/): write your own app - [Weather](https://slowboard.io/slowapps/weather/): Today, the next five days, and a pilot-style weather map. - [Reminders](https://slowboard.io/slowapps/reminders/): Asks you a question when something is due. You answer with a key. - [Calendar](https://slowboard.io/slowapps/calendar/): Your Google and iCloud calendars as one agenda, with the important things in red. - [Journal](https://slowboard.io/journal/): build notes and news ## Docs Each docs page is also served as Markdown: add .md to its path (the docs home is /docs/index.md). ### Start here - [What is Slowboard](https://slowboard.io/docs/index.md): Apps draw cards, a hub keeps them up to date, and a screen shows them calmly. Here is how the parts fit together. - [Quickstart](https://slowboard.io/docs/quickstart.md): Write a slowapp that draws one card, check it, and see it as it would look on the screen. About fifteen minutes, no Slowboard needed. - [Glossary](https://slowboard.io/docs/glossary.md): Every Slowboard term in one place: slowapp, card, feed, deck, slot, grant, hub, slowd, slownet and more, one plain definition each. ### Write slowapps - [How slowapps work](https://slowboard.io/docs/slowapps.md): Cards, feeds, jobs and grants: the ideas you need to write a slowapp, in any language. - [The smallest slowapp, explained](https://slowboard.io/docs/smallest-slowapp.md): The quickstart's Hello app, file by file: what each line does and which rule it follows. - [Questions and answers: the Reminders app](https://slowboard.io/docs/tutorial-reminders.md): Build the Reminders app, see its question and answer cards, and learn how an app asks a question on the screen and gets the answer back. - [A networked app: the Weather app](https://slowboard.io/docs/tutorial-weather.md): How an app that fetches from the internet is set up: network and storage grants, test data saved from real fetches, failures the hub retries, and secrets. - [Test without hardware](https://slowboard.io/docs/test-without-hardware.md): Render your app's examples, see the cards on a full screen, run unit tests, try the board's image, and run a job straight from your editor. - [Slowapps in any language](https://slowboard.io/docs/any-language.md): A slowapp is any container that reads a few environment variables and writes PNGs and a JSON file. Here is one in Go, with no Slowboard library at all. - [Settings, schedules and pages](https://slowboard.io/docs/settings-schedules-ui.md): Let people configure your app, run work on a clock of its own, and give your app a web page. - [Publish a slowapp](https://slowboard.io/docs/publish-a-slowapp.md): Let CI check every push, then tag a release to publish your app's image for every hub platform. ### Slowapp reference - [Manifest reference](https://slowboard.io/docs/manifest.md): Every table and key in slowapp.toml for contract 3, and the rules the checker enforces across keys. - [Container contract](https://slowboard.io/docs/slowapp-contract.md): What a slowapp container is given and what it must produce, under contract 3: command, environment, files, exit codes and limits. - [Python SDK reference](https://slowboard.io/docs/python-sdk.md): Every class, function and method in slowapp_kit, the Python SDK for slowapps, and the slowapp_sdk checking tools. - [Base images](https://slowboard.io/docs/base-images.md): The two Python base images, what is in them, and how their versions work. ### Run a hub - [slowhub](https://slowboard.io/docs/slowhub.md): What the hub does for you: it runs your slowapps on time, keeps their latest cards, and holds each screen's layout and preferences. - [Install slowhub](https://slowboard.io/docs/install-slowhub.md): Run a hub on a Slowboard 1085, or on a Linux machine of your own, and connect a screen to it. - [Install a slowapp](https://slowboard.io/docs/install-a-slowapp.md): Add a published slowapp to a hub, put its cards on a screen, and check that it runs. - [Layout and preferences](https://slowboard.io/docs/layout.md): Choose which app's cards appear where on a screen, and when the screen may update. Both live on the hub, one set per screen. - [slowhub reference](https://slowboard.io/docs/slowhub-reference.md): The slowhub.toml keys, the hub's files and sockets, its service, its commands and its HTTP endpoints. ### Build a Slowboard 1085 - [Set up a Slowboard 1085](https://slowboard.io/docs/setup.md): With the parts in hand: print the case, assemble the panel and keys, flash the card and get the board on your Wi-Fi. - [Troubleshooting](https://slowboard.io/docs/troubleshooting.md): When a Slowboard isn't doing what you expect: each symptom, its cause and the fix. ### Displays - [slowd](https://slowboard.io/docs/slowd.md): The display program: it puts cards on the screen, shows what each key does, answers presses at once, and keeps the e-paper within its limits. - [slowd reference](https://slowboard.io/docs/slowd-reference.md): slowd's configuration, its refresh rules and timings, its threads and files, the service's privileges, and its diagnostic commands. - [slownet](https://slowboard.io/docs/slownet.md): How a Slowboard gets on Wi-Fi: a hotspot and a setup page on your phone, brought up only while the board has no network. - [Supported screens and profiles](https://slowboard.io/docs/devices.md): The screens Slowboard runs on today and those planned, and every field of the profile that describes a screen to slowd. - [Port Slowboard to new hardware](https://slowboard.io/docs/porting.md): Run Slowboard on an e-paper panel or computer that isn't supported yet: describe it in one file, test it, and send it upstream. ### Internals - [Protocol (/sb/v1)](https://slowboard.io/docs/protocol.md): The protocol between slowd and a hub: transport and auth, the state document, bundles, blobs, events and timing fields. - [Hub internals](https://slowboard.io/docs/hub-internals.md): How slowhub is built: the planner, memory admission, the app supervisor, ingest, events, chained hubs and backups. ## Optional - [Everything in one file](https://slowboard.io/llms-full.txt): this summary and every docs page in full - [Source code](https://github.com/mike-anderson/epaper-dashboard)