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Anyway to set a Mac to black/white screen?
- Thread starter Josias
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I don't think it will save battery time, but yes, you can do this. Go to System Preferences>Universal Access> Use Grayscale
Why would you want this?
To save battery time, you can lower the screen brightness.
Why would you want this?
To save battery time, you can lower the screen brightness.
I imagine it would take more battery time to use it on grayscale. I just turned it on here to try it out, and all of the visual effects and movements are choppy, indicating that it is using more resources to produce black and white. Your best bet it to just stick with color.
Josias said:
No, because the Mac is designed to run under the normal settings. It would just take more effort from the machine to use 256 colors, etc. Even if it did preserve battery life at all, it would only be by mere minutes, if that.
If you really want to preserve battery life, the always turn off AirPort and/or Bluetooth when you are not using them, and keep the screen brightness as low as is comfortable. One bar is usually enough for me , because I always use it in the evening and at night. Believe it or not, brightness plays a HUGE factor is battery life.
This is because my dad is working alot outside, and his Win XP can only has around 2 hours of battery life in word. He had a Compaq back in 1996, which had 4-5 hours in word, when he set it to black/white. He considered getting a used 12" iBook G4 with 1.2 GHz, 256 MB RAM, 30 GB HDD, Tiger, AirPort, 2 years warranty, carrying bag and all original packaging and software discs, which we found for $450. It has around 6 hours of battery, which is perfect for him, but he though it would give him more batterylife to set it to black/white, like his Win 95 Compaq.
Josias said:This is because my dad is working alot outside, and his Win XP can only has around 2 hours of battery life in word. He had a Compaq back in 1996, which had 4-5 hours in word, when he set it to black/white. He considered getting a used 12" iBook G4 with 1.2 GHz, 256 MB RAM, 30 GB HDD, Tiger, AirPort, 2 years warranty, carrying bag and all original packaging and software discs, which we found for $450. It has around 6 hours of battery, which is perfect for him, but he though it would give him more batterylife to set it to black/white, like his Win 95 Compaq.
That is a sweet deal. (as far as mac's go)
I love setting my PowerBook to grey scale. The color gradients look very good, and sometimes I can't even tell that it is grey scale. It is also easier on the eyes in a dark room, because only your night vision needs to work, not your color which reduced the dammage caused by working in the dark.
TEG
TEG
New Macs do not support actual grayscale. When you set grayscale in the Universal Access system preference, it is doing that in software. The display itself is still running in millions (or thousands) of colors. It's not like the old days, where the displays could literally be set to 256 grays or black and white.
Shortcut keys: CRTL+ALT+CMD+8 and if you want to go back to color, repeat.
Aaron Tip of the Day: To zoom in or out. First we need to activate it: ALT(+)CMD(+)8 then CMD(+)+ or CMD(+)-
Pretty cool?
Aaron Tip of the Day: To zoom in or out. First we need to activate it: ALT(+)CMD(+)8 then CMD(+)+ or CMD(+)-
Pretty cool?
supremedesigner said:Shortcut keys: CRTL+ALT+CMD+8 and if you want to go back to color, repeat.
Aaron Tip of the Day: To zoom in or out. First we need to activate it: ALT(+)CMD(+)8 then CMD(+)+ or CMD(+)-
Pretty cool?
That is not greyscale, that inverts the colors.
As others have stated, the best way to save battery life is not to worry about screen colors - you need to minimize use of high-drain options on the laptop:
Airport
Optical drive
Screen brightness
Hard drive
To that end, if he doesn't need network access most of the time, shut off airport when possible. Also, consider getting more RAM (you said it had 256MB) as that will reduce the need to write info to the hard drive.
You can also purchase longer-life batteries, and keep in mind that a used laptop may not get the battery life spec'd originally.
Airport
Optical drive
Screen brightness
Hard drive
To that end, if he doesn't need network access most of the time, shut off airport when possible. Also, consider getting more RAM (you said it had 256MB) as that will reduce the need to write info to the hard drive.
You can also purchase longer-life batteries, and keep in mind that a used laptop may not get the battery life spec'd originally.
Josias said:This is because my dad is working alot outside...
To increase contrast, I use an inversed screen. I have F11 hot keyed for that.
Unfortunately there is not hotkey for grey scale.
Finder-->System Prefs->Universal Access->Display
Unfortunately, as OSs get larger and computers more powerful, their consumption of power increases. I have a Z80 based computer that I use for field work, it runs for about 80 hours on 4 AAs. It can't get the internet, but it works fine for word processing.
thats a really cool tipsupremedesigner said:Shortcut keys: CRTL+ALT+CMD+8 and if you want to go back to color, repeat.
Aaron Tip of the Day: To zoom in or out. First we need to activate it: ALT(+)CMD(+)8 then CMD(+)+ or CMD(+)-
Pretty cool?
evangelion-01 said:thats a really cool tip
yeah love that trick. and it gives you the coolest looking iTunes ever!