->         I had an alternator controler on the sloop and it showed a
->         digital meter for Amps and Volts. When turning the Thinkpad on
->         using the 12v rig, the ampmeter in two decimal, showed barely a
->         change. I wish that I had kept some figure but my use of the TP
->         was not restricted at all until I turned the 2m on TX. It
->         pulled, the 2m, quite a bit of juice when TXing at 25 W.

 Laptops are pretty power efficent Computers. They typicaly draw .5 to
.75 amps. And of that the Screen Back light draws about half of that.
The big prolbems in that people want them as small and as Light as
possable so they build them with small batteries. People Gripe about the
2 to 4 hour usage with those batteries yet would scream Lowder if they
had a Bigger(Heaver) battery.
 It is a Loose/Loose situation for the manfacturer.
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