[Coco] [OT] brief aside about true laptops

[John R. Hogerhuis]

On Sat, 2005-09-03 at 01:33 -0400, Ward Griffiths wrote:

> Hmm. A Mod 100 used to only get about 6-8 hours out of a set of AAs.  Has 
> chemical battery technology improved that far?

It's around 17-20 hours, the range I think depending on what you are
doing. I suppose running the modem or serial port (or bar code reader)
would decrease that amount.

Some of the hardware types on the Model 100 listserv can give you the
hard facts about what you can expect (with actual measurements of
current draw). With Remem ( http://bitchin100.com/remem_project.htm )
Steve designed to keep battery life as close as possible to this range.
I think we lost an hour, IIRC.

Interesting perhaps is that, the battery problem is "solvable" with an
external set of 4- d-cells strapped to the bottom  of the unit (called a
"power-pillow". Then battery life is about 200 hours!

-- John.