Car power for a MacBook Pro?

In article ,
Charles wrote:

> In article ,
> TaliesinSoft wrote:
>
> > Some years back, when I was still living in southern New Jersey and often
> > taking Amtrak from Wilmington to New York City, I needed to have some power
> > for my Mac Laptop, and in those days such was available only at the tables
> > in
> > the club car. There were probably about a dozen persons with laptops, about
> > two-thirds using PCs and the remainder using Macs. It was then that I noted
> > that the Mac users were all busy at work on spreadsheets and such and the
> > PC
> > users were, perhaps all of them as I didn't notice otherwise, playing
> > solitaire!
>
> I take the train often on the NEC and I have noticed a substantial
> increase of MacBook Pro's and MacBooks users. They seem to be
> everywhere.

I work at a large university and I have noticed more and more Apple
laptops over the past few years. At the start of each fall semester, I
volunteer to help the help desk set up students' computers in their door
rooms and I see more and more people there with Apple laptops. Its a
great sign and it matches with the reports Apple has made about
increased market share in the laptop area.

On 2008-02-02 19:26:05 -0800, TaliesinSoft said:

> On Sat, 2 Feb 2008 17:26:17 -0600, nospam wrote
> (in article ):
>
>> the airline adapter does include a cigarette lighter plug for airlines
>> that use that type of receptacle, but the voltage on the plane is
>> higher and i don't know if it really won't work in a car or if apple is
>> just saying don't do that. and another stupid thing about the airline
>> adapter is that it will only run the computer; it will *not* recharge
>> the battery.
>
> Considering that literally every car manufactured in the last 30 years has a
> 12 volt electrical system it only strikes me as incredible bozo (and
> unbelievably inconsiderate) on the part of the airlines to select a different
> voltage, especially given that the plug-in connector is the same as the car's
> lighter socket. There are times one can only wonder!

You get another problem in small planes. They mostly use car lighter
socket type adaptors, but most planes manufactured in the last 35 years
or so have 24 volt systems instead of 12 volt systems (all those
additional radios and avionics in modern planes forced the change).
Some step the voltage back down to 12 volts at the plug-ins. Some even
allow you to select the voltage. So you have to read the manual
carefully. The airline type adaptors have become much more common in
small planes, though, especially since the manufacturers stopped
putting ash trays and cigarette lighters in them.

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor