how long can you leave a CDP on 'pause'?

You're shi**ing me,right?Boy,oh boy what a day!!!!!

Give the guy a break, will ya ?

On my CDP, after a couple of minutes on pause, the disc stops and it goes into a "deeper" pause I guess you could call it.

It then takes a little longer to resume, since the disc has to come up to speed.

If your owner manual doesn't tell you, you could try listening closely to see if the disc stops after a few minutes.

My CDP has an indefinite pause. It happens everytime I hit the stop button.

Seriously, it is easy enough to scroll through a CD and get to any place you want quickly that lengthy pausing (more that a minute or two) is silly.

my CDP (SCD-1) has a very slow fast forward; if I'm listening to a long piece without 'chapters'

I'm listening to a long piece without 'chapters'

Example of, please...... CD/s?
You could copy your CD/s on CD-Rs and lay down your own chapters (tracks) for easy reference.

An example:

Saint-Saens: Carnival of the Animals on Decca

The main piece is played in 14 distinct sections but it is recorded as one track. About 20-25 minutes.

The disc stopping really is a nice feature, in case the phone rings or I get called to dinner and don't get back to listening.