Re: The Apple IIGS ADB Keyboard Lives!

[labelas@hotmail.com (Labelas Enoreth)]

In article <19990605003338.16933.00000701@ng-fz1.aol.com>,
supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) wrote:

> nobody@wavetech.net (Greg Buchner) wrote:
> 
> >Randy Shackelford <shack@onyx.southwind.net> wrote:
> >
> >> Charles A. Plater <ab3189@wayne.edu> wrote:
> >> 
> >> : I did get out of him
> >> : that there was probably some kind of ROM in the Adjustable Keybd that
> >> : prevented it from working w/ the GS.
> >> 
> >> I also saw somewhere that it doesn't work with 68K Macs without special
> >> software.
> >
> >Well, maybe '020 Macs.  Used one on both a IIci and a Centris 650
> >at one point...wasn't able to acquire it, someone bought it before
> >I could.
> 
> It does not work with Macs that came before the Adjustable Keyboard
> because the ADB controller/firmware does not recognize it.  The
> Adjustable Keyboard does not identify itself as either a standard or
> extended keyboard.
> 
> For earlier Macs, a software driver is needed.
Well, the keyboard comes with a disk that installs the needed system
resource (if needed) into the system file, I think it may require system
7.x but that may just be for the extra features (record/mute, volume, etc)
and once the system software got to about 7.5.1 it didn't need it anymore
(the installer would give a 'software not required on this machine' type
message, so I always assumed it was software level on all macs, not
hardware. As for the IIgs, well, I'm not a IIgs programmer, but if I did
find someone who wanted to undertake such a thing for the Apple II
'community', how hard would one say that it would be? Anyway, the keyboard
worked right out of the box on an LC with system 7.1, the only features
that were missing before I installed the software was the special keys,
and the fact that sometimes if I kept repeatedly going back and forth
between the 1st and 2nd parts (like cursoring around and typing with each
hand) sometimes the computer would get confused and only acknowledge input
from one of them until I restarted. So I just always assumed that there
was a sort of catch-all 'I'm a keyboard' identifier. But I digress. this
isn't a mac newsgroup. But darn it, I'd love to use this keyboard on the
IIgs too...