Re: Renewal batteries

Gregory Urban (kragmeister@po.father.com)
Mon, 26 Aug 1996 22:00:17 -0400

Greetings Mark,

At 07:34 PM 8/26/96 -0400, SHIELDS@genesis.cc.duq.edu wrote:
>
>The Renewals are Ray-O-Vac's proprietary alkaline rechargeables. Advantages:

They sound like a good idea however they also do not sound very cost
effective with a life span of only 25 charges. That and the proprietary
charger would be another expense. I did note your messages about your power
supply in the archives but didn't get to wade though much there...yet.

I noted the similarity between the power supply cable and a Mac serial
cable. Actually, they are the same size as six pin PS/2 cables, naturally
they are not interchangeable. What I really wonder about is why NEC used an
odd socket for the serial port. I just cannot find a cable to fit! I would
like to use a faster modem with my Ultralite as I have some decent internet
software loaded into it but that 2400 modem kind of crawls.

>around with long AUTOEXEC.BAT files, etc. I do have one NiHy pack that
>will run the machine a good long time after a charge, but either the
>parasitic load or the horrific NiHy self-discharge rate does it in after
>the first day.

How long is a "good long time"? My good NiMH battery will run the UL
for about 1.5 hrs. Methinks mine may have that parasitic load that you
mention as the battery does drain down over time. In the manual for the UL
<yes, I do have the books!> they suggest removing the NiMH battery if the
machine is to be stored for a period of time between charges. Hmm...

>Another poster mentioned the battery switch. This is for the NiCd memory

That is what I thought. When my friend bequeathed the UL to me after
having had it in his closet for years it was totally dead. After an initial
charging the NiCad seems to be working fine. I've only lost the contents of
the HDD once in the past year due to inattention. Thank goodness for floppy
backups!

What I'd really like to do is figure out a way to get the UL to use a
real HDD. I know I could connect an external drive to a parallel port but
that would mean more cables and more stuff to try to jam into the carry
case. That and I don't have the parallel interface, only the FDD with
parallel port and if I were to put together an external HDD I'd rather not
have to deal with taking along the external FDD.

Best Regards,
Greg

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