Yet another reason to get angry with Bill...

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sunday 19 March 2006 16:39, Eric Dunbar wrote:
> Gives you good exercise ;-). Chances are if you're able to afford a
> laptop ($100) you're also getting enough calories to support minor
> exercise so you'll be able to crank it. I imagine a few minutes
> worth of cranking could keep it going 20-30 mins and an on-screen
> reminder would tell you to recrank before the charge is used up.
> Plus, if you don't recrank there'll be an automatic "write to disk"
> to ensure you don't lose whatever it was you were working on.

Interestingly enough, they went for NiMH batteries. Charge density is 
less than Li-ion but those are very picky about charging voltage. 
NiMH can tolerate ratty charging power. Power consumption is on the 
order of 12W (they hope to get it down to 8.5W) so overall I think a 
fair amount of cranking will be needed.

But these are kids we are talking about, I can't see winding a crank 
being a problem for them

-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za
+27 82, double three seven, one nine three five