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July 4, 2005
An Apple G4 Keyboard under Windows NT/2000/XP
I fell in love with the feel of the modern Apple USB Keyboards since I first played with a G4. Unfortunately, their not cheap as new hardware; fortunately, they can be found for about $12 including delivery on eBay. Unfortunately (again), these tend to be from the G3 or early G4 era and are a far more non-PC friendly layout then the more modern version. (On the up side, they're smaller then conventional PC keyboards and you can likely fit them + your mouse into a regular keyboard tray.
To begin with, you'll find that Windows identifies it as a regular HID keyboard, and if you have USB Keyboard support turned on in your BIOS, DOS and the BIOS recognise it as a regular Keyboard as well.
Finding all the right keys can be tricky at first; for the most part, keys are labeled correctly, and in general, if a key has a label, it's mapped that way. The key in the lower left labelled 'control' is the 'ctrl' key, the key labelled 'option' (with 'alt' above it) is the 'alt' key and everything else you can recognize is what it should be and the Apple key (or 'command' for those Mac savvy) is now the Windows key on both sides.
If you're required to hit 'ctrl+alt+del' to login to Windows, you'll find that the number pad's '.' key functions as both a '.' key (with numlock on) and the 'del' key (with numlock off). To log into windows, hold down the keys labeled 'control' and 'option' and push the '.' key on the number pad. If this doesn't work, push the 'clear'/'num lock' key once and try again.
Now comes the fun part. If you're not a fan of the default layout, you can remap most any key to most anywhere else. Microsoft provides a free tool to do this in the "Windows Resource Kit" (yes, this is the 2003 version, but it works in XP and 2000). The program is called RemapKey, and if you happen to forget where to get it, a quick Google for 'emacs' and 'windows' will turn up thousands of pages of EMACS folks whining about using it to swap the control and capslock key. Once you have the kit downloaded and installed, go to run and type in 'remapkey' and click 'OK'.
It's beautifully simple to use, simply drag the correct key action from the keyboard at the top of the window to the key you'd like to push on the keyboard at the bottom of the window. Conveniently, a manual is avliable. In order to effectively use the program, you'll need to remember to look at the names of the keys, and not necessarily their location on the virtual keyboard, and that the Apple keyboards 'Apple' key is the Windows key, and the 'help' key is really the insert key.
Personally, I remapped the left 'Apple' key to 'alt', the 'option' key to the 'Windows' key, and the right 'Apple' key to right 'ctrl' just to keep with how a PC keyboard normally feels. Additionally, I remapped the 'help' key (called insert) to the 'del' key because it felt like a good place for it.
Good things: It feels good, almost all the keys are where they were before, you have a new 2 port USB hub, you have more room where your keyboard goes.
Bad things: you're missing some keys (not any good ones). (Also, I don't think the keyboard's power button does anything now.)
Posted by spiffed at July 4, 2005 7:35 PM