Laptops Powered by AA Batteries (Seriously)

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And some of them run an impressively long time on a single set of Double-A's.

Bryan Lunduke

December 03, 2023

If you’ve ever thought to yourself, “Gee, I sure do wish I could run my laptop on AA batteries”… boy are you in luck.

What follows is a list of laptops (or things that are very laptop-like) that can be powered entirely on replaceable AA batteries.

Atari ST Book

Released in 1991, the Atari ST Book was an absolute marvel. Slim (only 1.4” thick), light (4.2 lbs), and plenty powerful for a portable of the day (4MB of RAM, 120 MB HD).

Plus… the darn thing ran for 10 hours on 7 AA batteries (a rechargeable battery pack was also available).

TRS-80 Model 100

Released way back in 1983, the TRS-80 Model 100 is a pretty limited machine by today’s standards (especially compared to the likes of the Atari ST Book). 24k of memory. 240x64 display. But it also has a big, desktop style keyboard that is an absolute joy to type on and a built-in BASIC.

And it runs for a full 20 hours (I’ve done better than that with mine) off of just 4 AA’s.

To put that in comparison, the originally Gameboy also used 4 AA’s… and tended to get 15 hours (give or take) of play time.

HP OmniBook 300

Ah, the OmniBook line. Small. Light. With that adorable little “pop out mouse”.

The OmniBook 300, released in 1994, had a 386 CPUunder the hood, a monochrome VGA display and could run for up to 9 hours off of 4 AA batteries (when using the Flash storage model… the spinning hard drive model could manage around 5+ hours).

There were also 486-based models, including the HP OmniBook 425, that also ran off 4 AA batteries.

HP 200LX

Ok. So the HP 200LX (and the 100LX and 95LX) are technically “palmtops”. But they run a full, regular version of MS-DOS 5.0, are powered by an Intel x86 CPU (the 80186), and can have up to 4 MB of RAM. Making them a pretty noteworthy DOS portable.

Powered by two AA batteries and clocking in at a whopping 40 hours of battery life. I have one of these. Can confirm that the battery life is astoundingly good.

Alphasmart Dana

The Dana is a fascinating machine. A slab form factor, touch screen, PalmOS device will a full keyboard. Running PalmOS 4.1.2, with a super wide 560x160 display, 16 MB of memory… this is a true “PalmOS laptop”. Even has USB, SD card slots and (in later revision) WiFi. No joke.

And 40 hours of battery life (with the backlight off, 20+ with backlight turned on) via only 3 AA batteries.

Gecko EduBook

Here’s a somewhat more modern entry: The 2009 Gecko EduBook.

A “netbook” class laptop, shipping with Windows XP, juiced up by 8 AA batteries. Those eight batteries bring in only around 4 hours of battery life (a whole heaping helping less than everything else on this list).

But, hey. It’s running XP. And can probably run Linux. On AA's. Which is pretty nifty.

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Well, that settles that, then! Guess I won't be contributing to openSUSE! 🤣

Looking for the Podcast RSS feed or other links?
https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4619051/lunduke-journal-link-central-tm

Give the gift of The Lunduke Journal:
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September 13, 2023

"Andreas Kling creator of Serenity OS & Ladybird Web Browser" - Lunduke’s Big Tech Show - September 13th, 2023 - Ep 044

This episode is free for all to enjoy and share.

Be sure to subscribe here at Lunduke.Locals.com to get all shows & articles (including interviews with other amazing nerds).

veritanuda@veritanuda

1 hour ago

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What it says on the tin, we do some epic stuff today!

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bionicman08@bionicman08

1 hour ago

As we have not had a themed week here for ages I decided this week to do one of my own, a VirtualBox themed week. As part of it I have installed / attempted to install multiple BSD's, illumos based distros ( Solaris ) & also EasyOS. It has been years since I distro hopped. I hate that modern Linux won't boot under VirtualBox unless you give the guest at least 2 CPU cores.

Lunduke, if you see this please plan in some themed weeks for 2025, I miss them

Gabe@gginorio

3 hours ago

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Bryan Lunduke@Lunduke

3 hours ago

Woah! Lunduke Journal has almost hit our funding goals for end of NEXT month!

This is pretty cool: The Lunduke Journal has not only hit our December fundraising goal… but we are currently sitting at around 65% of the way towards our fundraising goal for the end of next month (January). Awesome.

That means we’re a bit ahead of where we need to be… by the end of January. If we can get at least close to that 100% line, over the next week, we won’t need to do any fundraising promotions during January. How awesome is that? 😎

Huge thank you to everyone who has gotten us here — you make The Lunduke Journal possible! Feels good to be ahead!

In order to hit that goal early, we’re just going to do something super simple and low key:

Lifetime Subscriptions for $200, via Locals.
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Either for yourself or for a gift.
Through December 26th.

All the details below. Or, you know, pick up a standard monthly / yearly subscription (via whatever subscription platform you prefer). No pressure. Everything goes directly towards that January goal — and keeping The Lunduke Journal confidently operating well into the future!

The Famous Lifetime Subscription via Locals (+ Gift Option)

The "World Famous Lunduke Journal Lifetime Subscription" is exactly what it sounds like. Pay once and get full access to The Lunduke Journal (with all the perks of subscription on Locals). For life.

Plus: They make a great, nerdy gift.

New Lifetime Subscriptions are available, for $200, from now through December 26th. Then this option goes "back into the vault".

Here's how to grab one of these coveted bad boys for yourself:

Go to Lunduke.Locals.com/support.
Select "Give Once".
Enter "200" into the amount field.
After checking out, Lunduke will toss you an email once your account is set to full lifetime status. (This usually happens within a few hours.)

Want to purchase a Lunduke Journal Lifetime Subscription as a gift for someone else? Here's how:

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Send an email to "bryan at Lunduke.com" with the subject "Lifetime Gift Subscription". Include the email address and / or Locals user name (if they have one) of the person you would like to gift the subscription to.
Lunduke will email you to confirm details.

The Famous Lifetime Subscription (with Bitcoin discount)

You can also obtain a Lifetime Subscription via Bitcoin. Save a few bucks with this option, as Bitcoin processing has fewer fees associated with it.

Make sure you have a Lunduke.Locals.com account (a free account works just fine).
Send $190 worth of Bitcoin (or more) to the following address:

bc1qyjakve8fywm8pz2v99v57yhjj0vzr2vjze6fcq

Email "bryan at lunduke.com" with the following information: What time you made the transaction, how much was sent (in Bitcoin), and the email address you use (or plan to use) on Locals.com.

Nice and easy.

-Lunduke

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Bryan Lunduke@Lunduke

5 hours ago

Last week at The Lunduke Journal (Dec 8 - Dec 21, 2024)

Linux Foundation Lowers Linux Spending! IBM, Red Hat, & Mozilla Discrimination Lawsuits! ChatGPT Can't Say Lunduke!

What an absolutely insane month December has been so far.

The annual reports for The Linux Foundation and Mozilla both dropped (and were just as ridiculous as you'd expect). Massive legal battles moved forward -- involving IBM, Red Hat, Mozilla, & Google. Oh, and I convinced OpenAI to ban my name from usage in ChatGPT. How nuts is that?

And, as usual, none of the big stories are being reported by The Generic Brand Tech News (tm) outlets. The Lunduke Journal remains the only game in town. All the links are below.

Speaking of which -- all of the links below are to Lunduke.Locals.com. But you can now officially find all of these shows on a bunch of other platforms. X, Rumble, Substack, Patreon, YouTube, Facebook, iTunes, Spotify... shoot... just about everywhere. You can even downlad DRM-Free MP4s of all shows. How crazy is that? All the links are over on Lunduke.com.

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Reminder: Check out Lunduke.com for all the handy URLS. Podcast RSS feeds, contact info, direct links to some of the big shows and articles and a bunch of other goodies. And be sure to subscribe to The Lunduke Journal to help support the work... and make sure you don't miss out on anything.

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