From: twh18@isuvax.iastate.edu (Phoenix)
Subject: HP48 batteries bug?
Reply-To: twh18@isuvax.iastate.edu
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa
Date: Sat, 26 Dec 1992 22:25:40 GMT

	Last night, while I was playing with my HP48, I certainly saw the
(((*))) annunicator on the top of the screen.  Since I knew I didn't
set any alarms.  I turned it off and back on to see the warning
message.  At first, no message appears.  However, after half hour,
it reappeared.  THis time, said "Warning Low Bat(s)!".  Oops!  Bateries
are low?!  I tried to put the intensity of the display darker by
press <On> and + together.  The screen became dark enough that I
no longer can see the menu.  Now, that's ridiclous.  If it has enough
power to turn the intensity so dark, how could it be low on batteries.
I decided to sit and see.  Same warning messages appeard 2 times more
in the next hour.  Oh, man, this is serious.  Finally, I digged some
new batteries out of my drawer and replaced them on my HP48.  Then,
I used a battery recharger with a light tester to test the old batteries.
Guess what?  The light wont' even come on.  Then, I put those batteries
in a small flashlight, and the light was very dim also.  Well, I am
surprised.  On my TI-85, it has like 10 levels of intensity, and each
intensity can be separated by another 3 sublevels of intensity, together
that's 30 levels of intensity.  When I had to turn the intensity on
my TI-85 to the highest intensity setting and the screen is still dim,
I know I need replace batteries on TI.  Seems different on the HP since
it can still give you a very dark intensity even the batteries is low.
So, one tip for those new HP users:  Always trust your HP low battery
warning messages, it AIN'T fake!:)
	Another thing is that on my TI-85, it has a Cell backup battery,
which is used to maintain the memory while the calculator is turned off/or
during the main batteries changing process.  However, I didn't catch this
on my HP48.  The HP's instruction book
 neverd mentioned anything about the secondary
battery nor it said about replace it other than replace the main
3 AAA(this sounds may like triple A - Anti-Aircraft-Artrilly, but it's not:)
batteries.  The only thing that the book said is that replace the batteries
in 2 min to avoid memory loss.  So, does anyone know what keeps the memory
while the HP48's batteries are being changed?  If there's a secondary
battery inside, when and how are we going to replace it?
	In addition, does keep a lots of programs on the HP uses considerable
more power? (say you have like 20K in RAM, would it uses much more power
than usual?)  Also, since I play tetris a lot on my HP48 (bad habbit, I know:),
can anyone tell me how many times the HP48's keys are designed to be pressed
without having problem?(somebody said like 20k times, but I am not sure).
See, the Tetris game requires you to repeat press the left/right key in order
to move the object instead let you just hold down the key and it keeps moving,
this is bad on keyboard, I think.  If anyone knows there's a Tetris game
for Hp48 and doesn't require you to keep press the keys, would you please tell
me where to get it?  Thanks in advance!
	Last thing (yeah, finally:), would it be a good idea to leave the
HP48 on or just turn it off if you know you are going to use it in 5-8 minutes?
This may sound stupid, but I just love my HP48 so much that I don't want the
On key to "die first" while other keys still functional:)
	Thank you very much for your participation.  Merry X-mas (a little
late, but that's OK) and happy new year!
				Ming

	Man, wouldn't it be great if the HP48 had a backslide case on like
the ones on TI-81/85?
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp48