Turns out the ancient $20 Thinkpad 560Z I’d been using to capture WWVB receiver data didn’t have the IBM configuration utility on it, which made it tough to tweak the LCD timeout. The key parameter for this laptop is that it runs at about 8 W with the LCD turned off, which is just what you want for long-term data collection.
The thing runs from a 2 GB CompactFlash card stuck in a CF-to-IDE adapter, so it has a (rather slow) solid-state hard drive. The nice part is being able to just jam the CF into the card reader on my desktop box, make appropriate changes, and pop it back in the 560Z.
Xubuntu automagically mounts all the partitions, so that part is easy. It has a FreeDOS partition that runs the DOS-only config program, a swap partition (not heavily used), and an Ubuntu 8.04 command-line-only installation.
The IBM config stuff is in a directory on a hard-drive image (saved from the picture frame project), so mount that and copy it over:
sudo mount -o loop,uid=ed,ro,offset=$((63*512)) develop.hd /mnt/loop cp -a /mnt/loop/ThinkPad/ /media/FreeDOS/
While figuring out what to change, it occurred to me that I should just make a batch file with all the proper settings. Here’s a cheat sheet for the available settings:
Refer to ps2.msg for raw help file some commands/options do not apply to 560Z 1. Power Management DEFAULT suspend time, screen off, HD off, standby time, proc speed DISK power-down timeout SAfe safe suspend S2H suspend to hibernate time PMode power mode ON auto-on date/time from suspend RI resume on Ring Detect from serial port HSWITCH hibernate on power off SErial serial port enable HFile create hibernation file HTimer time to hibernate CPUPower stop clock when idle POwer time to suspend Cover suspend with closed cover TImer Power command = suspend or hibernate PCIBUSPower PCI power saving LCd time to display power off DOCK suspend when docked LBattery suspend / hibernate with low battery SPeed CPU speed selection 2. Display Device SCreen select LCD / CRT HVEXPansion expand 640x480 to 800x600 F8 F8 selects LCD expansion 3. Alarm Related BEEP beep settings 4. Thinkpad Setup IRQ interrupt assignments JStick joystick config PCIIRQ PCI IRQ assignment DMA DMA channel assignment PARallel parallel port config IR IR port config KRate keyboard repeat rate SERA serial port config AUdio sound system config FNSticky sticky Fn key STARTup display startup screen MIDIport MIDI config TPOint Trackpoint enable / disable PRESENtation disable screen, standby, suspend AUDIOCTRL audio control port config 5. Others SUSpend suspend NOW FDD diskette drive int / ext OFF turn off NOW HIBernation hibernate NOW TURN turn off NOW BRightness LCD brightness on battery
And then the batch file:
ps2 default ps2 disk 0 ac ps2 pmode custom ac ps2 serial off ps2 hfile c ps2 htimer 0 ac ps2 power 0 ac ps2 cover disable ps2 lcd 5 ac ps2 speed auto medium ac ps2 hvexpansion off ps2 jstick disable ps2 parallel disable ps2 ir disable ps2 krate fast ps2 sera disable ps2 audio disable ps2 midi disable ps2 audioctrl disable
The time-of-day clock drifts with breathtaking speed, which may have something to do with the CPUPower option that shuts the processor clock off when there’s nothing useful going on.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 