OT: anyone want a couple of old Mac keyboards / mice?

[John Rumm]

Got a pair sat around doing nothing. One from a powermac 6100, and another from an ancient LC475. Wired, Applebus presumably...

[Jules Richardson]

Hmm, the LC line was early 90s, surely? USB didn't really start appearing until the latter half of the 90s; it's probably about 5 years too early.

Anything can be dismantled - it's the putting it back together again that can sometimes be a challenge :-)

Are the modern mac keyboard shells 'welded' at the seams, then? Sometimes it's possible to open such things with a dremel-like tool and then add material to take screws and hold it together afterwards (BTDT with some 'sealed' PSUs), but not always - and of course it may be more trouble than it's worth if a replacement is cheap/readily available...

[Bernard Peek]

Can I interest you in a couple of G3 Macs to go with them?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Make that 4. but G3 macs also use USB....

[Mike Tomlinson]

In article , Jules Richardson writes

I took two Mac wireless keyboards apart recently. One had a block of keys inop following spill, the other was dead. Aha, thought I, I'll take the membrane out of the dead one and fit it to t'other and make a working one out of the two.

They're held together with screws and come apart fairly easily. Allen key needed (2mm IIRC) but once I got them apart, the innards were completely different (different board in different place, hence membrane tails in wrong place), so I had to give up.

[docholliday93]

The G3 Blue and White used USB, but still had ADB ports available, and some people preferred their ADB keybards to the early apple USB ones. The ADB ports disappeared with the G4s

[Jules Richardson]

On my wife's [PC] keyboard, the membrane actually separates into an upper, lower and intermediate layer (the latter just containing holes and present to stop conductive parts touching until a key is pressed). Various holes on all three parts line up and fit over pegs in the keyboard shell moulding to keep them in the right place.

I'm sure they're not all like that and some[1] are physically glued together, but it wasn't immediately obvious that this particular one came apart until I tried.

[1] ISTR that Sinclair Spectrum ones were, for instance :-)

cheers

Jules

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , Jules Richardson escribió:

Yes, those Mac keyboards had separable membranes like that. But the tracks are very fragile and any drink spill, particularly if it contains sugar, wrecks them. They're also quite fragile and I try and avoid getting finger oil on the bits where a keypress makes contact.

Yep.

I've also stripped and reassembled several PC keyboards with similar technology.

Showing your age now :-)