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Comment by pzmarzly | Hacker News Reader

Can it be used to power on a shutdown device? AFAIK one of issues with running Macs in datacenters is that they do not turn on by themselves after being connected to power (which makes sense for consumer HW, but is a PITA when someone has to go and physically click a power button).

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Traditionally Macs have had an nvram setting that enables automatic boot when power is applied. It can be set from within the macOS power settings using the checkbox labeled "Start up automatically after a power failure". Once set, applying power will boot the OS (even an alternative OS like linux). Some variation of this feature has existed in all Macs since the earliest ones that supported software-based power control (~1990s era). I have not personally checked whether arm64 Macs have this feature, but I'd be surprised if they don't.

One of my favourite "strange" features of my G3 Desktop Mac was "Scheduled startup". You could set a time and date, then shut down the mac.

On schedule, it would boot right up (as long as it was plugged in at the time)

Most PCs of that era had it as well.

It still exists today at least for waking up from suspend. It's even exposed through WakeSystem=true in systemd timers.

Most desktop computers are able to do this, pretty sure. I've used this on an old Dell plus a UPS with outlets that only activate when the PC is on to build an over complicated timer for a lamp before

Configure them to power on automatically after a power loss event and just toggle the power source.

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