Re: Thoughts on the 560 "Kite"

[Randy Whittle <whittle@usc.edu>]

At 10:02 PM 8/27/96 -0400, John H. Kim wrote:
>On Tue, 27 Aug 1996, jesse montrose wrote:
>> At 10:30 PM 8/26/96 -0700, Randy wrote:
>> 
>> >...but the lack of a
>> >BIOS-level battery guage was a SEVERE disappointment.  Basically I have to
>> >load up software to keep tabs on the battery.
>> 
>> Don't you have a battery gauge on the win95 taskbar?
>
>I think what Randy is getting at is that it's SO convenient and
>cleaner to have these functions built into the BIOS. 

        Jesse makes a good point--one can use the battery gauge built-in to
Win '95 (I forgot to mention that was a moderating factor).  And it does
work moderately well.  But also, I've since discovered that even if you have
the TP Fuel applet loaded (in Win 95), that stupid little FN+F2 combo
doesn't bring it up.  Very annoying...

        But as you go on to say, it was *really* neat to have that quick key
combo pop up on the 701, looking the same old way, regardless of whether I
was in Win, Win 95, or DOS (and presumably other OS's).  That BIOS-Level
support was wonderful.

> On the 701,
>you can start using all these functions once you get past the BIOS
>initialization.  You can even bring up the gauge as DOS/Win/Win95
>is booting.  Having to wait for Win95 to come up to check the
>battery status is like having to wait for your car to start and
>warm up before you can check how much gas you have left.
>
>The BIOS laptop gauges are also OS-independent.  They'll work just
>fine under Linux, FreeBSD, Lynx, or any other oddball OS you throw
>at it.  It's a great feature, and I'm surprised IBM isn't putting
>it on all their machines.
>--
>John H. Kim       "I stop for red traffic lights" -- bumper sticker 

        Agreed 100%.  As I said, I thought this was the "New" way of doing
things and sort of assumed other TP's after the 701 (maybe before) had this
feature.  I was sorely disappointed to find it lacking in the 560.  A real
step back after a huge step forward, IMO.

-------
Randy Whittle		rwhittle@usa.net
USC Graduate School of Business    http://www-scf.usc.edu/~whittle