dvorak on a 17" PowerBook

soulcrusher · July 26, 2003 1:58AM

I just bought a 17" PowerBook with extended APP for $2800.

I was wondering if it was possible to remove the keys from the keyboard and rearrange them in dvorak format. I've done this successfully on my Apple Pro Keyboard. I don't want to **** up a brand new PowerBook.

Thank you.

bauman · July 26, 2003 2:36AM

Why would you do that? The advantages from Dvorak come with touch typing anyways... just learn to type without looking

gyroscope · July 26, 2003 2:37AM

John C. Dvorak ? No way !

pscates · July 26, 2003 10:26AM

Ha! When I first saw this thread title, that's exactly what I thought: "that idiot from that show has done a review of one...let's see how long it takes him to bitch that there isn't a floppy drive on it...".

I didn't know you were referring to that other thing.

placebo · July 26, 2003 12:12PM

Re-directing the fiber optic cables would be way to risky for it to be worth it, unless you can swap the keys without messing the cables. Take one key off (preferably an unimportant one, such as one of the F keys, and see whether the optic wire is directly routed and attached to the key, or whether the cable goes to the sensor under the key.

soulcrusher · July 26, 2003 1:03PM

i'll just place stickers on the keys then

murbot · July 26, 2003 1:54PM

From the thread title, I was expecting to see a photo of John Dvorak using a 17" PowerBook... and was also thinking "how long until we have several desktop images based on this?"

powerdoc · July 26, 2003 2:37PM

Quote:

Originally posted by murbot

From the thread title, I was expecting to see a photo of John Dvorak using a 17" PowerBook... and was also thinking "how long until we have several desktop images based on this?"

No , the 17 inch powerbook is not for the idiots.

However you can add to the listing of the qualitie of the 17 inch powerbook, that he has a nice quality earjack output. It's not as good as my HiFi system, marantz 63SE, and Creek OBH11 dedicated ampli for earphone, but the difference is small.

It's good to see that Apple is able to produce high qualitie products.

placebo · July 26, 2003 2:40PM

Quote:

Originally posted by soulcrusher

i'll just place stickers on the keys then

See if you can somehow print stickers with blue glow-in-the-dark ink/paint.

matsu · July 28, 2003 7:56AM

Why would you need to redirect the fiber-optic cables? It's just a regular keyboard in a electrical-mechanical sense, the fiber optics are there for back light only.

placebo · July 28, 2003 8:34AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Matsu

Why would you need to redirect the fiber-optic cables? It's just a regular keyboard in a electrical-mechanical sense, the fiber optics are there for back light only.

That's what I was thinking.

socrates · July 28, 2003 9:37AM

A friend of mine got a dodgy 17" powerbook keyboard and the keys kept falling off. This is of no relevance except for the fact that it gave me an opportunity to see underneath the keys and as far as I can tell they are pretty much the same as all previous powerbooks.

Gently prise one off by putting a screwdriver underneath the front and it will click out of place (this may be very scary the first time you do it). The mechanism underneath is a little fiddly, but after a couple of keys you'll be swapping them around with no trouble. There's certainly no fibre optic cables to worry about.

If you're concerned, do a google search for stories about powerbook/ibook keyboards with keys that have fallen off. I first found out how to do this by reading an article about the old clamshell ibooks keyboards.

dvorak on a 17" PowerBook

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