Why choose 120 volts?

[iljitsch at muada.com (Iljitsch van Beijnum)]

On 27 mei 2009, at 18:03, Peter Beckman wrote:

> I haven't seen a PC power supply which is incapable of both 120v/ 
> 60hz and
> 240v/50hz in a very long time.

After this nice voltage discussion, what about hertz? Would it be more  
efficient for us Europeans to run our stuff at 60 Hz rather than 50? I  
hear that a 50 Hz grid loses 15% more due to inefficiencies than a 60  
Hz grid. Not sure if that also applies over short distances, though.

And apparently you can run your Apple laptop's power supply on 80V  
DC... The switching power supply doesn't care as long as the voltage  
is low enough to not fry the half of the rectifier diodes in  
continuous use. (Try at your own risk, of course.)