At least for an ATMEL MEGA not much power at all especially if it is run at 4MHz. The biggest rated current draw on the TPDD emulator is the SD card which is spec’d at around 100mA while writing to the flash, but is a little manufacturer dependent some are better than others. The TPDD emulator can also be put to sleep when idle which reduces the overall power drain to the uA region or lower depending on the sleep level. So with a single no name AA and taking into account inefficiencies in the power supply chain you could theoretically run the system continuously for about 10 hours. By sleeping the MEGA/TPDD when it was not being used that time could extend out to days if not weeks. The sleep is also useful if you forget to switch off the board when done :)
I am sure the other processors could also be put to sleep if the right hardware/pins were connected. The latest generation of embedded MCUs have really low sleep currents if the board is built correctly, however most are poorly designed leading to high leakage currents. As to the powerful CPU question in its day the DVI box ran a 4MHz Z80A compatible so could easily outperform the model T - IMHO :) A 4MHz Mega seems quite in keeping with the original DVI, especially when it is the size of a AA battery…… From: M100 <m100-boun...@lists.bitchin100.com<mailto:m100-boun...@lists.bitchin100.com>> on behalf of James Zeun <james.z...@gmail.com<mailto:james.z...@gmail.com>> Reply-To: <m...@bitchin100.com<mailto:m...@bitchin100.com>> Date: Friday, August 24, 2018 at 4:31 AM To: <m...@bitchin100.com<mailto:m...@bitchin100.com>> Subject: Re: [M100] New Age Digital Storage Box (NADSBox) If you need power, how much are we talking? Could you not just use AA's? The TPDD uses 2xAA :-) On Fri, 24 Aug 2018, 3:37 a.m. Brian White, <bw.al...@gmail.com<mailto:bw.al...@gmail.com>> wrote: That's what I would say if using an sbc (pi) instead of a microcontroller (arduino). But even these microcontrollers are more powerful cpus and have more ram than the host machine in this case, but then again, ever since day one, peripherals have always had their own cpus that were at least the equivalent of the host if not more, especially disk drives, modems, and printers. So, no not really. <snip>
