{"id":207,"date":"2008-04-29T21:02:29","date_gmt":"2008-04-30T02:02:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/2008\/04\/29\/continuing-the-keyboard-saga\/"},"modified":"2008-04-29T21:02:29","modified_gmt":"2008-04-30T02:02:29","slug":"continuing-the-keyboard-saga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/2008\/04\/continuing-the-keyboard-saga\/","title":{"rendered":"Continuing the Keyboard Saga"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m having this very weird confluence-of-thought thing going with John Gruber<\/a> right now. My last post was about keyboards and my old Apple Extended Keyboard II, and then a few days later Gruber devoted an entire episode of his podcast The Talk Show<\/a> to it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s odd because after my last blog post, I thought about why I had given up on what was once my favorite keyboard. It was a combination of no media keys and flaky compatibility problems I always had with the old drivers for the iMate<\/a>, Griffin\u2019s ADB-to-USB adapter. But then I realized those were all problems in OS 9, which was prone to flakiness whenever it came to third-party devices. Under OS X, I discovered, there\u2019s no software required at all to use the iMate; it just works. <\/p>\n

The other issue is the media keys, in particular, I really like having volume and iTunes control at my fingertips without mousing. Then the solution came to me: the PowerMate<\/a>, also from Griffin. I bought one of these years ago but I never really used it because my Logitech Elite keyboard had all those iTunes controls and a volume wheel, so I never used it. I dug that out, installed the drivers, and discovered that it does exactly what I missed.<\/p>\n

So I un-mothballed my old (I mean that, it\u2019s from 1990) AEK II. Keyboards actually get pretty nasty so I spent like 45 minutes cleaning it. And it\u2019s wonderful! I had forgotten what a terrific piece of hardware it is. The only really annoying thing about it is the lack of a wrist rest; I haven\u2019t used a keyboard without an integrated wrist rest in ages. So after a trip to Office Depot for a wrist rest, I\u2019m back in business.<\/p>\n

And then today the esteemed Mr. Gruber posted pictures of his old AEK II<\/a>. See the divot he\u2019d worn into his space bar after years of use? Well, guess what? Mine has the same divot. <\/p>\n

\"AEK_II_1.NGdKc50PYka6.jpg\"<\/p>\n

\"AEK_II_2.2ewfDfm1TCXZ.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Interesting how similarly they\u2019ve worn. (John\u2019s a much better photographer than me; IRL mine looks even more like his pictures.) This makes me worry that this one isn\u2019t long for this world. It is, after all, almost 18 years old (though it got the last roughly seven years off, or partially off, for good behavior).<\/p>\n

So, if anyone has one of these bad boys still new in the original box\u2014or John, if you get any extras in response to your podcast plea\u2014let me know. I\u2019ll be happy to buy it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m having this very weird confluence-of-thought thing going with John Gruber right now. My last post was about keyboards and my old Apple Extended Keyboard II, and then a few days later Gruber devoted an entire episode of his podcast The Talk Show to it. It\u2019s odd because after my last blog post, I thought … Continue reading Continuing the Keyboard Saga<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}