Q: How do I prevent the 100/200LX from powering down while on batteries?

A: There are several utility programs to do this, but the following procedure will create a short assembler program that should do the trick. Warning: back up your machine before running this, as a typing error might wreak all sorts of havoc.

The computer says: You type:

A:\JUNK> debug

- a 100

1970:0100 mov ah,46

1970:0102 mov bx,0000

1970:0105 int 15

1970:0107 int 20

1970:0109

- r cx

CX 0000

: 9

- n timeout.com

- w

Writing 00009 bytes

- quit

A:\JUNK>

You've just created a short program, called TIMEOUT.COM <See Shareware/Freeware index>, that you can run to inhibit the automatic time-out feature. Re-booting will restore the default timeout limit, or you can create a corresponding timein.com program, by following the above procedure except change the second mov statement to mov bx,0c9a, and change the n statement to n timein.com. The number after the mov bx, is a hexadecimal integer equal to 18 times the number of seconds desired for automatic power-down. 0433 corresponds to 1 minute, 0c9a means 3 minutes, 14ff means 5 minutes, 3efd means 15 minutes, etc.

Again, back up your machine before running either of these programs, until you're confident the programs work correctly.