[SPARCbook] Huge Battery

[Rainer Canavan]

> The Tadpole lore speaks of a huge external battery pack that has 4-6
> hours of life in it.
> 
> This would be cool, it would border on making the sparcbook a useable
> laptop, as opposed to a portable sparc.

I bought one from the parts tadpole sold over the list at sunhelp.com,
and it definitiveley is among the coolest things for the sparcbook.
However, it _is_ heavy, and makes carrying the SB around much less fun.
On the other side, the looks on the faces of other people seeing this
monster for the first time adds to the fun...
 
> Does anyone have such a beast ?  Has anyone seen one ?  Is the battery
> life really that good (and if so, is it sustainable after many recharges
> ?). 

It is. I haven't gotten in to discharge in less than 5 hours, but it's
only seeing rare and light use here. There are NiCd D cells in it,
and it has the advantage of beeing under control of the power management,
giving you a good estimate of left-over battery run time. However,
one can't plug those thing inor out  while the Machine is running, you 
have to suspend-to-disk first.



Rainer.