This question came out of a lunchtime conversation with some colleagues, none of us who work in hardware or embedded: there was a period of time, up to the late 90s, where certain mobile computers and PDAs could be run off AAs for a long period of time, with sacrifices of I/O, display fidelity, and storage. Examples at the end.
Beyond size and aesthetics, is this possible today – or is this no longer possible?
(For example, do modern displays hoover up too much energy? Do 5G, Bluetooh and WiFi radios constantly suck power?)
Here were some examples of late-era portables that ran off AAs that we came up with:
- the Psion palmtop series used a couple of AAs, plus a coin cell battery for memory; and ran for a week [1]
– the Apple eMate, a Newton (ARM) in clamshell laptop form, which ran off 6 AA rechargable cells that could be swapped for off-the-shelf AAs, and ran for a week as well;
– similarly, the AlphaSmart Dana (Palm platform on 68k/ColdFire) and HP 200LX palmtops (PC-compatible) could be run off two AA batteries for around 30-50ish hours.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40438434
Beyond size and aesthetics, is this possible today – or is this no longer possible?
(For example, do modern displays hoover up too much energy? Do 5G, Bluetooh and WiFi radios constantly suck power?)
Here were some examples of late-era portables that ran off AAs that we came up with:
- the Psion palmtop series used a couple of AAs, plus a coin cell battery for memory; and ran for a week [1]
– the Apple eMate, a Newton (ARM) in clamshell laptop form, which ran off 6 AA rechargable cells that could be swapped for off-the-shelf AAs, and ran for a week as well;
– similarly, the AlphaSmart Dana (Palm platform on 68k/ColdFire) and HP 200LX palmtops (PC-compatible) could be run off two AA batteries for around 30-50ish hours.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40438434