The slowdown that you are experiencing is actually called Rest Mode.
The Power Manager processor monitors the amount of time the Macintosh Portable has been inactive. After a period of 15 seconds without any activity, the unit goes into Rest mode. It causes the CPU to insert 64 wait states into RAM and ROM accesses, which lowers the effective clock rate to approximately 1MHz. Interrupts continue to be processed at the same rate. As soon as the trackball or mouse moves, or any peripheral device is activated, the computer returns to full speed instantly.
The following items are checked and stop the unit from entering rest mode:
- Mouse movement
- I/O activity (keyboard, trackball, modem, and so on)
- Cursor change
- Serial port access
This feature can be turned off when running Video Works or some other program that avoids detection by the rest routine. You can disable rest mode by doing this:
1) Enter the Control Panel DA and select the Portable CDEV.
2) Hold Down the Option key and press on the words "Minutes Until Automatic
Sleep".
3) Click "Don't Rest" in the dialog box that appears and select "OK".
Article Change History:
17 Nov 1994 - Reviewed for technical accuracy.
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