Caps Lock Extension
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The Caps Lock key doesn't stay mechanically pressed down on the PowerBook computers. Caps Lock is an extension that adds an international caps lock symbol as a caps lock indicator to the menu bar. The symbol may not appear the instant the Caps Lock key is pressed, because the processor may have other tasks to handle before the Caps Lock extension is executed. Even though the menu-bar symbol may not change immediately, the keyboard does toggle immediately whenever you press the Caps Lock key.
Revised Low Power Dialogs
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There are fewer low power dialogs. A lower voltage level prompts the dialogs to increase battery life and eliminate any memory effect on the NiCad battery. The last dialog box (10 second warning) comes up when the battery voltage is low enough to eliminate the memory effect. There are three dialog boxes that come up. The first dialog appears when about 15 minutes of life remains. The backlight dims to reduce power consumption. This is the time to save documents and plug in the power adapter. If operation continues, a second low-power message is displayed. At this point, you may have just enough time to save your documents. Finally, a 10 second dialog appears and the unit sleeps. If you plug in the power adapter within the next two days, all documents are saved.
New Portable Control Panel
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The Portable Control Panel modification eliminates the brightness/contrast controls for the Macintosh PowerBooks. The Macintosh Portable gets this information from the Brightness Control Panel. This panel still selects the time until hard disk drive and system sleep. It also allows selection of internal or external modems on the Macintosh PowerBooks 140, 145, and 170 and the original Macintosh Portable. The PowerBook 100 doesn't have this option because it has no external modem port.
When clicking the "Minutes Until Automatic Sleep" text while holding down the Option key, the system rest dialog box appears. This causes a dialog to appear that allows turning the rest feature on or off.
Battery Control Panel
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This controls a number of options and provides a visual indicator of the
charging status of the battery. You click the flag to see a number of options, depending on which PowerBook model you have. A sleep button comes up on all the portables (the Macintosh Portable and all PowerBook models). Power-Saver buttons come up on the Macintosh PowerBook 170. Power-Saver changes the processor speed to 16MHz on the PowerBook 170 to increase battery life.
Article Change History
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09/24/92 - Corrected to show that there are three low-power messages, not two.
08/03/92 - Updated for PowerBook 145.
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