Re: Power Management

Maciej Burczyk (mburczyk@ternet.pl)
Thu, 12 Jun 1997 23:18:33 +0200

> As far as power management is concerned:
> I have worked a considerable time now to enhance OmniSwp (DOS key
> relocation and virtual 80 column screen, ) with power management. This
> is however not a trivial exercise. It is possible to program the PMU
> registers like Maciej did, I made this exercise too, but there is no
> real power saving as long as you don't goto sleep or suspend mode (at
> least I didn't manage, but maybe Maciej did, could you post this binary?
> I guess if it's small it's OK?). Besides there's difficulty in getting
> back from suspend, the BIOS seems to reprogram the PMU registers in a
> way that makes the OG hang sometimes.

I cannot agree with your statement. The VG230 goes into DOZE mode and this
saves power while running programs and no keyboard or screen activities take
place. Of course more power is saved when OGO is in the sleep mode.
I had no problems getting back from suspend mode (if this really is suspend
mode). The power consumption is actually higher than you mention (about 7mA).
So probably this is sleep mode.

Please find below my measurememnts:

DOS DOS PMU GEOS Note

sleep n/a 6.8mA 1mA
idle 88mA 88mA 70mA *1
running1 344mA 126mA 312mA *2
running2 344mA 344mA - *3
running3 344mA 126mA - *4

Notes:
*1: DOS: command prompt
*2: DOS: gwbasic v. 3.22 idle mode; GEOS: moving card in Solitaire
*3: DOS: gwbasic v. 3.22 simple for-next with print
*4: DOS: gwbasic v. 3.22 simple for-next without

Best regards,

Maciej Burczyk
mabur@polbox.com