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The old tandy laptop like PCs were x86 compatible and ran on a couple AA batteries.
MY PII full tower uses about 60watts for the whole tower and all, my old 486 used only about 20 watts tower and all, my tandy 1000 RLX was around 8 watts for the whole system.
So yes older can be better for power consumption, especially when you factor in the system really was off when you hit the kill switch, Speed can have a rather dramatic cost and the Atoms really don't normally as a full system draw only a watt or two, typically at full load they are upwards of 60watts up to 80 watts for the whole system (not including monitor). Where the ATOM shines is when it is idle it can clock down to a couple watts, just not when in use.
And in reality I can stand most any system speed for the task, really 300mhz is sufficient, for certain aspects a high speed is nice but definately unnecessary. I used to run the system on a 486DX2 66mhz setup and it ran fine, but I didn't do the extra graphics then, and it took a bit longer to look up a first or last name. What I do really need is a fair amount of memory, 256mb helps much more than clock speed on the software concerned, more than that and the software crashes, less and it runs more slowly.
Thank You For The Suggestions
It looks like the AMD Geode is the most likely to come in a flavor that will tolerate Windows 98 software, My heraldry and name meaning software simply doesn't run under 2000 or higher, when I hacked it into Windows XP I couldn't get some of the functions to work and I can't get my BMP printer to function. (which I need to distort and fit text instantly onto any type of artwork without 5-10minutes of photoship work)
As for laptops, I would have to then carry a 2nd monitor as our booth layout simply wouldn't allow me to quickly, easily and safely show the customer the poem, information or image. Also the laptop is very very likely to get damaged, we are loaded to the ceiling when we go and the PC needs a good tough case to survive the trip
VMWare doesn't seem to work, my hardware dongle really doesn't like it and VMWare tends to break many of the printing tricks I need to use, it also increases the level of complexity since my folks will be using it without me there.
For a business VMWare simply is a no go and more trouble than its worth. It is far easier using the real hardware than doing it the hard way.
Ryan
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