Does anyone here know for certain whether modern Mac powerbooks have the ability to turn their main power on with software?
(not merely from sleep, but rather main power on, the same as pressing the power button of the Mac powerbook)
Recently, the notion that modern Mac powerbooks no longer had the ability to turn themselves on from a cold start was reinforced to me, by a person from Sophisticated Circuits, the creators of a hardware product called "PowerKey Pro".
The story that was told to me was that older Macs used ADB (Apple Desktop Bus) which had a dedicated signal line that was used to turn the Mac's main power on.
...by software sending a software signal down that dedicated line, telling the Mac to turn its main power on, yielding the same result as pressing the Power-On button of a modern Mac powerbook.
Present day Macs do not have an ADB connector, so supposedly they lost the ability to power-on by this means.
Anyhow, I bought the latest Tiger compatable PowerKey Pro model 650, and sure enough the Power-On selection was grayed-out in the menu selections, indicating that it was not available, at least for my Pismo powerbook, running OS 10.4.1
Never being one to take no for an answer, I experimented, looking for an undocumented way to turn on my Pismo's main power.
Eventually, I found a workaround that worked, at least for a Pismo, running Tiger.
I will try the workaround on a 17-inch G4 powerbook, later.
BTW, the PowerKey hardware connects to the Mac via a USB connector.
In summary, my question is: (kinda hazy question, because I really do not know what is going on here)
Do modern Mac powerbooks somehow still retain the ability to turn
themselves on from a "normal" powered off condition?
(NOT from some sort of crash caused by losing power, say for example by someone removing the battery while the powerbook is running)
Thanks for any enlightenment about this matter...
Mark-
In article 070720050439048773%NoSpamDammit@redacted.invalid, Mark Conrad NoSpamDammit@redacted.invalid wrote:
Does anyone here know for certain whether modern Mac powerbooks have the ability to turn their main power on with software?
The question doesn't make much sense. If the computer is powered down, there is no software running to power it up and if the software is running, there's no need to power it up.
I don't know about PowerBooks, but all my iBooks have the ability to perform a scheduled startup (Energy Saver) from a cold shutdown so they can at least startup from firmware.
It would seem that the question you're really asking is: is there a way to "tickle" the power manager, other than by the internal clock, to initiate a power up sequence. My guess wound be no.
In article 070720050439048773%NoSpamDammit@redacted.invalid, Mark Conrad NoSpamDammit@redacted.invalid wrote:
Does anyone here know for certain whether modern Mac powerbooks have the ability to turn their main power on with software?
(not merely from sleep, but rather main power on, the same as pressing the power button of the Mac powerbook)
Recently, the notion that modern Mac powerbooks no longer had the ability to turn themselves on from a cold start was reinforced to me, by a person from Sophisticated Circuits, the creators of a hardware product called "PowerKey Pro".
The story that was told to me was that older Macs used ADB (Apple Desktop Bus) which had a dedicated signal line that was used to turn the Mac's main power on.
...by software sending a software signal down that dedicated line, telling the Mac to turn its main power on, yielding the same result as pressing the Power-On button of a modern Mac powerbook.
Present day Macs do not have an ADB connector, so supposedly they lost the ability to power-on by this means.
Anyhow, I bought the latest Tiger compatable PowerKey Pro model 650, and sure enough the Power-On selection was grayed-out in the menu selections, indicating that it was not available, at least for my Pismo powerbook, running OS 10.4.1
Never being one to take no for an answer, I experimented, looking for an undocumented way to turn on my Pismo's main power.
Eventually, I found a workaround that worked, at least for a Pismo, running Tiger.
I will try the workaround on a 17-inch G4 powerbook, later.
BTW, the PowerKey hardware connects to the Mac via a USB connector.
Just the other day I was looking at System Profiler and wondering about the extra USB.
In summary, my question is: (kinda hazy question, because I really do not know what is going on here)
Do modern Mac powerbooks somehow still retain the ability to turnthemselves on from a "normal" powered off condition?
(NOT from some sort of crash caused by losing power, say for example by someone removing the battery while the powerbook is running)
Thanks for any enlightenment about this matter...
Mark-
Otherwise I have no idea about this.
In article tomstiller-68D384.08014107072005@redacted.invalid, Tom Stiller tomstiller@redacted.invalid wrote:
In article 070720050439048773%NoSpamDammit@redacted.invalid, Mark Conrad NoSpamDammit@redacted.invalid wrote:
Does anyone here know for certain whether modern Mac powerbooks have the ability to turn their main power on with software?
The question doesn't make much sense. If the computer is powered down, there is no software running to power it up and if the software is running, there's no need to power it up.
I know, I know... That is why I kinda qualified my inability to ask the 'proper' question with:
"(kinda hazy question, because I really do not know what is going on here)"
I don't know about PowerBooks, but all my iBooks have the ability to perform a scheduled startup (Energy Saver) from a cold shutdown so they can at least startup from firmware.
I think that is what is going on with my setup here, it is probably somehow getting its power on instructions from my firmware. (PRAM?)
It would seem that the question you're really asking is: is there a way to "tickle" the power manager, other than by the internal clock, to initiate a power up sequence. My guess wound be no.
That is indeed what I meant to ask, but it did not occur to me how to ask it, at the time.
I think with the loss of the ADB, the ability to tickle the power manager is lost forever, unless some obscure company creates a hardware product that can somehow be hooked up to the power manager circuitry.
I wanna make a further observation about your comment below -
I don't know about PowerBooks, but all my iBooks have the ability to perform a scheduled startup (Energy Saver) from a cold shutdown so they can at least startup from firmware.
To my way of thinking, the scheduled startups suffer from a serious drawback, in that if the Energy Saver app' itself gets corrupted, well then the scheduled startup goes down the drain and does not work.
Also, the Mac clock gets corrupted fairly regularly, so that also would put the kabosh on any schedule attempt.
What I am looking for is a way to remotely recover from any type of freeze or lockup or corruption (...that is not hardware related, of course)
Guys running expensive servers have this same problem, I guess.
If I am sitting right in front of the computer, I can recover from almost every possible kind of freeze and/or corruption.
...but of course I can not do the same trick remotely. (at least, not until some enterprising company starts creating hardware devices that can press keys on keyboards, and change cabling connections)
...I know of no way to reset PRAM remotely, unless it can be done from the Terminal window.
The only solution I can think of is to have redundant Macs at my home location, and if one Mac bites the dust, then power up the spare Mac.
...not practical though, IMO.
It sounds too expensive, not to mention the added drawback of needing to have all the same software on both home Macs.
I plan to leave my home Macs for a month at a time, however it would be "nice" if I could retain the ability to utilize those home macs, from my remote locations.
Think I will drop the entire matter as a lost cause.
For any lurkers interested, phase-one of my undocumented "workaround" was to power off my powerbook by the conventional software method that is part of PowerKey - - - that was the easy part.
Phase-two was to schedule and select "restart" instead of power-on.
(restart is normally used on a Mac that is already powered up)
Even though the powerbook was completely dead, "restart" managed to power it up.
None of this will work unless a telephone cable is plugged into the Mac's modem connection.
I also set the software to "repeating", with the result that the Mac gets completely turned off, dead as a doornail for two minutes, then powered itself up for two minutes, then back to "off", etc., etc.
Full scheduling is supported by PowerKey, which means one can set very erratic schedules indeed. In concert with Timbuktu, one could change these schedules on the fly, adjusting them to suit individual needs.
Unfortunately, if your Mac gets really badly frozen or corrupted, all bets are off and none of the above will work.
For ordinary "minor" system freezes, PowerKey can usually recover from those with a periodically scheduled remote restart. (say once or twice a day, for example)
Desktop Macs have a "robustness" advantage over powerbooks in this regard, because the main A.C. power to a desktop Mac can be shut off instantly with an ordinary phone call to the PowerKey hardware device.
...then powered up later with another phone call.
Even a really badly frozen desktop Mac can often be reclaimed and repaired this way, from a remote location.
I would not advise pulling the battery out of a powerbook and operating it strictly from the A.C. line like a desktop Mac, as it seems to corrupt PRAM on a fairly regular basis when operated this severe way that the powerbook was not designed for.
Mark-
Tom Stiller wrote:
In article 070720050439048773%NoSpamDammit@redacted.invalid, Mark Conrad NoSpamDammit@redacted.invalid wrote:
Does anyone here know for certain whether modern Mac powerbooks have the ability to turn their main power on with software?
The question doesn't make much sense. If the computer is powered down, there is no software running to power it up and if the software is running, there's no need to power it up.
Most systems today use a soft-off. Macs were doing this before Intel but it's also prevalent in the Intel world now. Power on doesn't involve physically closing a circuit between the mains and the power supply anymore--there's some portion of the power supply active and some circuitry on the mainboard. Inexperienced or poorly trained techs have killed machines by assuming that "off" meant "cold" and pulling or inserting boards without first physically disconnecting the mains by pulling the plug. Some machines have a "hard" power switch on the back that interrupts the circuit.
I don't know about PowerBooks, but all my iBooks have the ability to perform a scheduled startup (Energy Saver) from a cold shutdown so they can at least startup from firmware.
It would seem that the question you're really asking is: is there a way to "tickle" the power manager, other than by the internal clock, to initiate a power up sequence. My guess wound be no.
iBooks and Firewire Powerbooks support wake-on-LAN, so there is a watchdog running when powered off. How one can access that watchdog other than by wake-on-LAN I have no idea. However once there's a machine up on the network, it should be able to bring up the others by sending magic packets, if those machines have wake-on-LAN turned on (it can be turned off and by default I believe that it is).
In article dajjii12pno@redacted.invalid, "J. Clarke" jclarke.usenet@redacted.invalid wrote:
Tom Stiller wrote:
In article 070720050439048773%NoSpamDammit@redacted.invalid, Mark Conrad NoSpamDammit@redacted.invalid wrote:
Does anyone here know for certain whether modern Mac powerbooks have the ability to turn their main power on with software?
The question doesn't make much sense. If the computer is powered down, there is no software running to power it up and if the software is running, there's no need to power it up.
Most systems today use a soft-off. Macs were doing this before Intel but it's also prevalent in the Intel world now. Power on doesn't involve physically closing a circuit between the mains and the power supply anymore--there's some portion of the power supply active and some circuitry on the mainboard. Inexperienced or poorly trained techs have killed machines by assuming that "off" meant "cold" and pulling or inserting boards without first physically disconnecting the mains by pulling the plug. Some machines have a "hard" power switch on the back that interrupts the circuit.
Could be true, but I don't see how it bears on the question or the response.
I don't know about PowerBooks, but all my iBooks have the ability to perform a scheduled startup (Energy Saver) from a cold shutdown so they can at least startup from firmware.
It would seem that the question you're really asking is: is there a way to "tickle" the power manager, other than by the internal clock, to initiate a power up sequence. My guess wound be no.
iBooks and Firewire Powerbooks support wake-on-LAN, so there is a watchdog running when powered off. How one can access that watchdog other than by wake-on-LAN I have no idea. However once there's a machine up on the network, it should be able to bring up the others by sending magic packets, if those machines have wake-on-LAN turned on (it can be turned off and by default I believe that it is).
With the kids home from college, there are four iBooks of various generations from clamshell to G4 in the house at the moment; none of them support wake-on-LAN (the option is grayed out) when they are connected to the LAN via Ethernet. The only machine on the LAN that does, is my iMac; an older tray-loading imac doesn't offer the option.
Tom Stiller tomstiller@redacted.invalid wrote:
iBooks and Firewire Powerbooks support wake-on-LAN, so there is a watchdog running when powered off. How one can access that watchdog other than by wake-on-LAN I have no idea. However once there's a machine up on the network, it should be able to bring up the others by sending magic packets, if those machines have wake-on-LAN turned on (it can be turned off and by default I believe that it is).
With the kids home from college, there are four iBooks of various generations from clamshell to G4 in the house at the moment; none of them support wake-on-LAN (the option is grayed out) when they are connected to the LAN via Ethernet. The only machine on the LAN that does, is my iMac; an older tray-loading imac doesn't offer the option.
My PowerBook G4 17" offers both "Wake when modem detects a ring" and "Wake for Ethernet network administrator access".
Tom Stiller wrote:
In article dajjii12pno@redacted.invalid, "J. Clarke" jclarke.usenet@redacted.invalid wrote:
Tom Stiller wrote:
In article 070720050439048773%NoSpamDammit@redacted.invalid, Mark Conrad NoSpamDammit@redacted.invalid wrote:
Does anyone here know for certain whether modern Mac powerbooks have the ability to turn their main power on with software?
The question doesn't make much sense. If the computer is powered down, there is no software running to power it up and if the software is running, there's no need to power it up.
Most systems today use a soft-off. Macs were doing this before Intel but it's also prevalent in the Intel world now. Power on doesn't involve physically closing a circuit between the mains and the power supply anymore--there's some portion of the power supply active and some circuitry on the mainboard. Inexperienced or poorly trained techs have killed machines by assuming that "off" meant "cold" and pulling or inserting boards without first physically disconnecting the mains by pulling the plug. Some machines have a "hard" power switch on the back that interrupts the circuit.
Could be true, but I don't see how it bears on the question or the response.
Very simple--"powered down" does not mean "turned completely off" anymore and hasn't for a long time in the Mac world.
I don't know about PowerBooks, but all my iBooks have the ability to perform a scheduled startup (Energy Saver) from a cold shutdown so they can at least startup from firmware.
It would seem that the question you're really asking is: is there a way to "tickle" the power manager, other than by the internal clock, to initiate a power up sequence. My guess wound be no.
iBooks and Firewire Powerbooks support wake-on-LAN, so there is a watchdog running when powered off. How one can access that watchdog other than by wake-on-LAN I have no idea. However once there's a machine up on the network, it should be able to bring up the others by sending magic packets, if those machines have wake-on-LAN turned on (it can be turned off and by default I believe that it is).
With the kids home from college, there are four iBooks of various generations from clamshell to G4 in the house at the moment; none of them support wake-on-LAN (the option is grayed out) when they are connected to the LAN via Ethernet. The only machine on the LAN that does, is my iMac; an older tray-loading imac doesn't offer the option.
So you're saying that in http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106790 Apple lies?
In article dajjii12pno@redacted.invalid, "J. Clarke" jclarke.usenet@redacted.invalid wrote:
iBooks and Firewire Powerbooks support wake-on-LAN, so there is a watchdog running when powered off.
What does the word "wake" connote in this context? It sounds like the machine would be sleeping, not powered off.
MK.
In article dajjii12pno@redacted.invalid, J. Clarke jclarke.usenet@redacted.invalid wrote to Tom Stiller:
Most systems today use a soft-off. Macs were doing this before Intel but it's also prevalent in the Intel world now. Power on doesn't involve physically closing a circuit between the mains and the power supply anymore--there's some portion of the power supply active and some circuitry on the mainboard. Inexperienced or poorly trained techs have killed machines by assuming that "off" meant "cold" and pulling or inserting boards without first physically disconnecting the mains by pulling the plug. Some machines have a "hard" power switch on the back that interrupts the circuit.
- - - and - - -
iBooks and Firewire Powerbooks support wake-on-LAN, so there is a watchdog running when powered off. How one can access that watchdog other than by wake-on-LAN I have no idea.
However once there's a machine up on the network, it should be able to bring up the others by sending magic packets, if those machines have wake-on-LAN turned on (it can be turned off and by default I believe that it is).
Yes, there is a family of freezes that can only be recovered from by pressing that emergency power off button on some powerbooks.
Naturally, this can't be done remotely, one has to be sitting right at the computer.
My guess is that if someone was really determined to do this remotely, they would have to physically modify that emergency switch on some powerbooks, in such a manner that it could be "pressed" remotely.
...such as routing that switch electrically to one of the A.C. outlets of the PowerKey hardware, where the re-routed rear panel switch on the powerbook could then be "pressed" remotely by the ordinary means of sending a phone call to the PowerKey device.
Next, the remote powerbook would need to have been pre-configured to boot from its unharmed external drive at power up, otherwise the same freeze could re-occur at power on.
The option-key routine should route the startup over to the external drive before the damaged OS has a chance to load and re-introduce the original freeze.
Practically speaking, I am going to declare it a lost cause, and forget about remotely accessing my home Macs.
Oh, I will still do it I guess, but the first really hard freeze of my home Macs will deprive me of their use.
Fortunately, I can still power off such a hard frozen Mac from its main power source by using the regular power outlet switching feature of PowerKey.
Unfortunately, this only works with desktop Macs, not with powerbooks because they receive their main power from batteries.
I could pull the batteries out, and operate the powerbook directly from the A.C. outlet, but this is brutal on the powerbook, because a lot of them are not really designed to take the abuse of operating directly from the A.C. source.
Mark-
On 2005.7.7, Tom Stiller wrote:
In article 070720050439048773%NoSpamDammit@redacted.invalid, Mark Conrad NoSpamDammit@redacted.invalid wrote:
Does anyone here know for certain whether modern Mac powerbooks have the ability to turn their main power on with software?
The question doesn't make much sense. If the computer is powered down, there is no software running to power it up and if the software is running, there's no need to power it up.
It does make sense. I don't see much point in a laptop doing this, but I used to use my SGI machines as an alarm clock once in a while. One of the nvram settings was to wake up or shut down at certain times. The computer's clock runs on its own battery and nvram is non-volatile, so the computer doesn't have to be "on" for all this to happen.
You can set shutdown/boot up times from the prom monitor (= Open Firmware) on unix machines or from an OS utility. Apple is no different on that score. Wasn't it developed by Sun? If so, I would assume that the Sun settings for auto bootup and shutdown would work -- as long as Apple didn't edit them out.
I don't think you'd need any special software for setting the parameters.
Mark Conrad NoSpamDammit@redacted.invalid writes:
Does anyone here know for certain whether modern Mac powerbooks have the ability to turn their main power on with software?
(not merely from sleep, but rather main power on, the same as pressing the power button of the Mac powerbook)
This isn't really a software-on, you're describing, but a specal purpose circuit that Apple used for a short time.
The ability to power-on from a USB keyboard was present in some of the early USB-based Macs (like the iMac/G3 and the Cube).
This feature was later removed, because Apple had to violate the USB spec in order to make it work. This makes the feature incompatible with USB hubs, which have quickly become a necessity.
I don't know precisely when this feature was removed, but it has been gone for several years.
-- David
Matthew Kirkcaldie wrote:
In article dajjii12pno@redacted.invalid, "J. Clarke" jclarke.usenet@redacted.invalid wrote:
iBooks and Firewire Powerbooks support wake-on-LAN, so there is a watchdog running when powered off.
What does the word "wake" connote in this context? It sounds like the machine would be sleeping, not powered off.
Every machine that I have ever seen that supports Wake on LAN will power up from soft-off on receiving the magic packet. Some will for no apparent reason. WOL was developed before a "sleep" mode was commonplace.
MK.
In article 070720050439048773%NoSpamDammit@redacted.invalid, Mark Conrad NoSpamDammit@redacted.invalid wrote:
Does anyone here know for certain whether modern Mac powerbooks have the ability to turn their main power on with software?
Modern Macs have the ability to have an unattended power-up scheduled in OpenFirmware.
(not merely from sleep, but rather main power on, the same as pressing the power button of the Mac powerbook)
Recently, the notion that modern Mac powerbooks no longer had the ability to turn themselves on from a cold start was reinforced to me, by a person from Sophisticated Circuits, the creators of a hardware product called "PowerKey Pro".
The story that was told to me was that older Macs used ADB (Apple Desktop Bus) which had a dedicated signal line that was used to turn the Mac's main power on.
...by software sending a software signal down that dedicated line, telling the Mac to turn its main power on, yielding the same result as pressing the Power-On button of a modern Mac powerbook.
Present day Macs do not have an ADB connector, so supposedly they lost the ability to power-on by this means.
What you were told is oversimplified to the point of error. ADB did not
have a dedicated power-on line. Most ADB machines did have circuitry
that was live and powered on the machine when the ADB bus was in a
particular electrical state which could be invoked by pressing the power
key. It wasn't software sending a signal.
Apple continued supporting power-on signals from external devices for the first few years of USB machines but then, as David noted, took it away because it broke conformance with the USB spec. I know my (early-2000) Sawtooth G4 supported power-on from external devices. I know my wife's (late 2002) MDD G4 does not. I'm not sure when in that roughly 2.5 year span it went away. I do recall hearing that the first couple of models that shipped with a power-button-less keyboard still supported external power-on.
G
Garglemonster wrote:
On 2005.7.7, Tom Stiller wrote:
In article 070720050439048773%NoSpamDammit@redacted.invalid, Mark Conrad NoSpamDammit@redacted.invalid wrote:
Does anyone here know for certain whether modern Mac powerbooks have the ability to turn their main power on with software?
The question doesn't make much sense. If the computer is powered down, there is no software running to power it up and if the software is running, there's no need to power it up.
It does make sense. I don't see much point in a laptop doing this, but I used to use my SGI machines as an alarm clock once in a while. One of the nvram settings was to wake up or shut down at certain times. The computer's clock runs on its own battery and nvram is non-volatile, so the computer doesn't have to be "on" for all this to happen.
You can set shutdown/boot up times from the prom monitor (= Open Firmware) on unix machines or from an OS utility.
There are very few computers in the world that will not run one flavor or another of Unix, so there is no such thing as a "Unix machine" as a separate category of computer. Some machines have the kind of monitors you describe, others do not. If it's there it's not part of Unix, it's part of the system firmware, which is not a part of or defined by Unix.
Apple is no different on that score. Wasn't it developed by Sun? If so, I would assume that the Sun settings for auto bootup and shutdown would work -- as long as Apple didn't edit them out.
What leads you to believe that any Apple machine was developed by Sun? Apple uses an IBM/Motorola developed processor, not a Sparc, and Darwin is derived from BSD directly, not via Solaris.
I don't think you'd need any special software for setting the parameters.
In article uce-DCC975.06312208072005@redacted.invalid, Gregory Weston uce@redacted.invalid wrote:
Does anyone here know for certain whether modern Mac powerbooks have the ability to turn their main power on with software?
Modern Macs have the ability to have an unattended power-up scheduled in OpenFirmware.
I find that interesting.
Is it possible to schedule an initial power-down from OpenFirmware?
I have not looked at the available OpenFirmware commands in a long time.
Gotta dig through my notes.
The scheduled power-down, if available, could come in very handy if a really nasty freeze occured.
Mark-
On 2005.7.8, J. Clarke wrote:
There are very few computers in the world that will not run one flavor or another of Unix, so there is no such thing as a "Unix machine" as a separate category of computer. Some machines have the kind of monitors you describe, others do not. If it's there it's not part of Unix, it's part of the system firmware, which is not a part of or defined by Unix.
"Unix machine" is a shorthand for "workstation or server running some proprietary Unix-flavoured OS" e.g., Sun, SGI, HP, etc. These things were generally expensive, well built and had useful prom monitors. People used the term in contrast to "PC" and "Mac". With the decline of the propietary Unix workstation marketshare and the popularity of Linux, I suppose the term "Unix machine" might have lost some meaning.
Apple is no different on that score. Wasn't it developed by Sun? If so, I would assume that the Sun settings for auto bootup and shutdown would work -- as long as Apple didn't edit them out.
What leads you to believe that any Apple machine was developed by Sun? Apple uses an IBM/Motorola developed processor, not a Sparc, and Darwin is derived from BSD directly, not via Solaris.
Sorry for the unclear pronoun reference. The 'it' in question is Open Firmware.
You can get a power reboot switch that can be triggered via modem or the Internet. That would be the surest way to reboot without intervention.
Mark Conrad wrote:
Does anyone here know for certain whether modern Mac powerbooks have the ability to turn their main power on with software?
In article uce-DCC975.06312208072005@redacted.invalid, Gregory Weston uce@redacted.invalid wrote:
What you were told is oversimplified to the point of error. ADB did not have a dedicated power-on line.
Sure did; pin 2. Pull it down to turn the machine on, hold it down pin 3 reaches +5V.
In article damsm6$og7$1@redacted.invalid, Mike Berger berger@redacted.invalid wrote:
Mark Conrad wrote:
Does anyone here know for certain whether modern Mac powerbooks have the ability to turn their main power on with software?
You can get a power reboot switch that can be triggered via modem or the Internet. That would be the surest way to reboot without intervention.
Sorry, I did not make some things clear in my initial post.
Background - - -
A lot of "how I operate" here is connected with experimentation.
Several reasons for this:
Software and hardware often have "quirks" which leads them to perform in unexpected ways. Often, experimentation will quickly reveal such quirks.
Learning Unix is a tough chore, at least for me. The usual admonition to "Read the man pages" generally confuses me. I find that asking questions in these NGs and experimentation with Unix produces much better results. That experimentation often zaps my software something fierce, however that is no problem because I have excellent backups. I mean really excellent mirror backups using Unix dd, pdisk, dc, and freeware HexEdit, and OSX's Calculator and Disk Utility.
Just plain recreation. Experimentation is an end in itself, I get a lot of recreational benefits. I think that attitude of mine resulted from my long tenure in reseach and development, (34 years) prior to my retirement 16 years ago.
End of Background - - -
Okay, so being spoiled by several years using my backups, I never once was stung by freezes spoiling my fun, because I could always recover from freezes, no matter how severe they were.
...as long as I could sit at my computer, and do things like pressing the power reset button, connect/disconnect USB and FW cables, etc.
So I had an incorrect idea that I could still accomplish all this remotely, but alas, I am learning it can not be done.
Don't get me wrong, there are many types of software freezes that can be remotely recovered from by a simple reboot.
Other types of freezes might re-occur after the reboot.
...or the reboot itself might fail to occur, because some critical piece of "reboot" software was damaged. The frozen computer might actually need a hard power down, which could be done with a desktop machine, but might not be possible with a battery powered machine.
For example, using PowerKey, I can set up various reboot schedules and everything will usually work.
However, if the PowerKey software within my computer gets corrupted, or if the computer's clock settings get corrupted, then I am faced with a remote freeze that I can not recover from.
That sort of bad situation would never occur if I were sitting right in front of the remote computer. (assuming no hardware failure, of course)
So the bottom line, as far as I am concerned, is to use PowerKey for the limited protection it provides.
I am not super paranoid about all this, just ordinarily paranoid.
Hmm, wonder what the difference is between being super paranoid versus being ordinarily paranoid.
Mark-
In article uce-DCC975.06312208072005@redacted.invalid, Gregory Weston uce@redacted.invalid wrote:
What you were told is oversimplified to the point of error. ADB did not have a dedicated power-on line.
Well, yes, it did: pin 2...
http://www.epanorama.net/documents/joystick/misc_computer.html
But you're right that it wasn't a software signal sent down this line that powered the machine on. It just got +5V when you hit the Power button.
J. Clarke wrote:
What leads you to believe that any Apple machine was developed by Sun? Apple uses an IBM/Motorola developed processor, not a Sparc, and Darwin is derived from BSD directly, not via Solaris.
Garglemonster said nothing about Sun developing an Apple machine. His paragraph was about Open Firmware which was indeed developed By Sun:
Garglemonster said "You can set shutdown/boot up times from the prom monitlor (= Open Firmware) on unix machines or from an OS utility. Apple is no different on that score. Wasn't it developed by Sun? If so, I would assume that the Sun settings for auto bootup and shutdown would work -- as long as Apple didn't edit them out."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Firmware
Open Firmware (also, OpenBoot) is a hardware-independent firmware (computer software which loads the operating system), developed by Sun Microsystems, and used in PowerPC-based "New World" Apple Macintosh computers (though it will be dropped with Apple's transition to x86), Sun Microsystems SPARC based workstations and servers, IBM POWER systems, and PegasosPPC systems, among others. On those computers, Open Firmware fulfills the same tasks as BIOS does on PC computers.
scott wrote:
J. Clarke wrote:
What leads you to believe that any Apple machine was developed by Sun? Apple uses an IBM/Motorola developed processor, not a Sparc, and Darwin is derived from BSD directly, not via Solaris.
Garglemonster said nothing about Sun developing an Apple machine. His paragraph was about Open Firmware which was indeed developed By Sun:
Garglemonster said "You can set shutdown/boot up times from the prom monitlor (= Open Firmware) on unix machines or from an OS utility. Apple is no different on that score. Wasn't it developed by Sun? If so, I would assume that the Sun settings for auto bootup and shutdown would work -- as long as Apple didn't edit them out."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Firmware
Open Firmware (also, OpenBoot) is a hardware-independent firmware (computer software which loads the operating system), developed by Sun Microsystems, and used in PowerPC-based "New World" Apple Macintosh computers (though it will be dropped with Apple's transition to x86), Sun Microsystems SPARC based workstations and servers, IBM POWER systems, and PegasosPPC systems, among others. On those computers, Open Firmware fulfills the same tasks as BIOS does on PC computers.
Uh, he already answered this about a week ago.