The hpcmips port will force-suspend a MobilePro 800 when the battery
gets low.  This is bad because:

 * suspending doesn't use less power since there is no screen
   backlight control on this port.  It does no good.

 * sometimes suspending leaves a Microdrive spinning constantly, so it
   can actually use more power.  It does harm.

 * The battery measurement is so inaccurate that the machine can keep
   running for an hour or more after it starts force-suspending, so
   the force-suspend feature effectively cuts the battery life by
   somewhere between 1/2 and 1/5.

This patch against current-20021205 backs out the force-suspend
feature on all hpcmips platforms.  This helps, but it's wrong.

The ``right thing'' would probably be to use some platform switch to
disable it except where screen backlight control is available, but I
don't know how to do that.  It might also be appropriate to make the
force-suspend happen only once and then never again until AC power is
applied and removed, so you can press [Power] and use the last hour
remaining in your battery.  Granted this is not what real laptops do,
but real laptops have real battery meters.  

Anyway, whatever.  this crude back-out works much better for me, at
least.

Index: vr/vrpiu.c
===================================================================
RCS file: /scratch/cvsroot/netbsd/src/sys/arch/hpcmips/vr/vrpiu.c,v
retrieving revision 1.1.1.3
diff -u -r1.1.1.3 vrpiu.c
--- vr/vrpiu.c	10 Dec 2002 22:01:00 -0000	1.1.1.3
+++ vr/vrpiu.c	23 Feb 2003 19:44:27 -0000
@@ -815,7 +815,9 @@
 #ifdef VRPIU_ADHOC_BATTERY_EVENT
 	static int batteryhigh = 0;
 	static int batterylow = 0;
+#ifdef HPCMIPS_RETARDED_FORCESUSPEND
 	static int critical = 0;
+#endif
 
 	if (sc->sc_battery_spec == NULL 
 	    || sc->sc_battery_spec->main_port == -1)
@@ -828,6 +830,7 @@
 		    CONFIG_HOOK_PMEVENT_BATTERY,
 		    (void *)CONFIG_HOOK_BATT_CRITICAL);
 		batterylow = 3;
+#ifdef HPCMIPS_RETARDED_FORCESUSPEND
 		if (critical) {
 			config_hook_call(CONFIG_HOOK_PMEVENT,
 			    CONFIG_HOOK_PMEVENT_SUSPENDREQ,
@@ -836,6 +839,7 @@
 			batterylow = 0;
 		}
 		critical++;
+#endif
 	} else if (sc->sc_battery.value[sc->sc_battery_spec->main_port] 
 	    <= sc->sc_battery_spec->dc_20p) {
 		batteryhigh = 0;
Index: vr/vrpmu.c
===================================================================
RCS file: /scratch/cvsroot/netbsd/src/sys/arch/hpcmips/vr/vrpmu.c,v
retrieving revision 1.1.1.3
diff -u -r1.1.1.3 vrpmu.c
--- vr/vrpmu.c	10 Dec 2002 22:01:00 -0000	1.1.1.3
+++ vr/vrpmu.c	23 Feb 2003 19:06:03 -0000
@@ -283,8 +283,12 @@
 	if (intstat1 & PMUINT_RTC)
 		;
 	if (intstat1 & PMUINT_BATT)
+#ifdef HPCMIPS_RETARDED_FORCESUSPEND
 		config_hook_call(CONFIG_HOOK_PMEVENT,
 		    CONFIG_HOOK_PMEVENT_SUSPENDREQ, NULL);
+#else
+		;
+#endif
 	if (intstat1 & PMUINT_TIMOUTRST)
 		;
 	if (intstat1 & PMUINT_RTCRST)
@@ -294,8 +298,12 @@
 	if (intstat1 & PMUINT_DMSWRST)
 		;
 	if (intstat1 & PMUINT_BATTINTR)
+#ifdef HPCMIPS_RETARDED_FORCESUSPEND
 		config_hook_call(CONFIG_HOOK_PMEVENT,
 		    CONFIG_HOOK_PMEVENT_SUSPENDREQ, NULL);
+#else
+		;
+#endif
 	if (intstat1 & PMUINT_POWERSW) {
 		/*
 		 * you can't detect when the button is released


-- 
While the new wave of New-Wave comic-book artists strives to make
heard their scream of primal rage, the ultimate effect is too often
nothing more than the crybaby yowl of teen angst.
		-- Steranko