From: jbormel_at_warren.med
Date: Sat Jan 22 1994 - 12:43:36 EST
Thanks for posting the ps2 BR N undocumented option.
One battery saving feature I really miss-> a 'diskdrive shutdown now' key.
There was a utility called COLAP, a color laptop bitmap messager
I have used on my Toshiba notebook. It had a flag specific for
toshiba that alloed you to press Right-Shift-Key + DEL, and the
hard disk would spin down instantly. Power consumption was improved
but what I really liked was the silence. I still use this when I
dial in to read news groups. I dont need my disk spinning, even when
I'm plugged in, and the silence is really pleasant.
On the TP750, I use FN + F3, wait the 5 to 10 seconds for the disk to
shutdown, then press a key to get the screen back on. It would be
great if there was an undocumented key to do this directly and
immediately. (Granted it is a small thing, but its lovely when you
have it)
----- original message -------
Well I brightened up my display with the above command, and then, starting
with a 91% battery, I ran a really intensive computation (bootstrapping the
GCC compiler under OS/2, which uses the disk aggressively). THe battery
lasted 105 minutes. This compares to perhaps 125-130 minutes that I would
get in the same circumstances (91% starting out, heavy computation) with
the display in low position. By the way, I had the display intensity full
on for this whole experiment (lower slider all the way up!)
So it certainly takes up more battery, but it is VERY nice to have this
possibility when it is needed.
Probably the reason that IBM buries this option is that magazines can so
easily beat up on lower battery life, but not quite so easily on a slightly
less bright display. Still it does seem silly that a really important and
useful option like this is not clearly documented!
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