New Mac Keyboard

Wow. What a disappointment.

In the middle of posting a reply in the About This Mac? thread in the Classic forum, the left Shift key on my old Macally keyboard stayed down. The only way to release it is to turn it upside down so it's sitting on the keys, and bash the double hockey sticks out of it.

So I drove across town to an official Apple retailer, hoping the store would have some keyboard brand other than Apple, because I knew that with Apple's, none of the peripheral keys would work with OS 9.

No such luck, of course. Worse, the keyboard cost $10 more than Apple's did last year, perhaps because the retailer can jack up his profit margin as much as it wants.

Even in OS X, the brightness key and contrast key don't work because I have a Samsung display. I'd need a bubble level to measure it's slant from dead flat on the desk. I have it propped up on a phone book.

Its touch has very little feedback. It feels like a toy.

The designer will be first against the wall. The wall will look first-rate, though — form over function — Cupertino is a good teacher.

Brown Study, you are talking about the Alu keyboard, right?

I know that there is a driver you can download right here. System requirements are for 10.4.10 and newer.

See if that doesn't give the keyboard all of its functionality. Let us know how this turns out. Good luck!


P.S.: If you are talking about the Apple Alu keyboard, I must admit I love mine. I hated the white keyboard that originally came with the iMac G5, I had to pound in the keys. This one is so soft to the touch, reminds me a lot of the MacAlly iCeKey I had bought for my old G4 iMac.

It's the aluminum keyboard. I downloaded that driver last night, but the brightness/contrast keys are still dead. It isn't an Apple display.

Adding to my rant, the F keys/volume-control keys/all the rest on the top row are meant for Lilliputians, I consistently hit the n and m keys instead of the spacebar and I didn't win the lottery.

The ideal keyboard would be from an Underwood manual typewriter. Now that is my idea of tactile.