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Backlit Keyboard Hacks?
- Thread starter DarkenedFetus
- Start date
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DarkenedFetus said:
I'm not positive about this, but the Apple site says the keyboard will turn on its blue glow when its ambient light sensors indicate it is dark(er). I think this means it is controlled by hardware rather than software, and I do not think it is linked in any way to Mac OS X itself. That would explain why it would still light up when booted in Classic (Mac OS <9.2.2). This is just an assumption, so please correct me if I am wrong.
Godfather said:
How cool would it be if you could just light up specific keys, possibly scrolling words in sequence of letters
"hacked"
"<insert insult here>"
Godfather said:
It may be software operated, in fact, I believe it is, but that does not mean is it necessarily connected to the operating system in any way. It would be cool though if Apple would let you regulate its usage, but I'm fine with my 600m keyboard for now.
I never said I was sure, but it seems logical to me that everything goes through the software. yes the illumination takes place after the 'dark' has been noticed, but still something needs 2 activate the illumination too... That and the fact that one can set the lights on/off through the keyboard makes me think its possible. (think of it as a dev test for apple, who can't turn off the lights that easy but do need to test the backlit.)
The white (not blue) light is controlled by software. There's an option in the Keyboard & Mouse pref pane to enable it (same as the normal function of F8).
I don't think the keys are individually lit. I believe there is a strand of fiberoptic cable that runs trought the key pad and lights the entire keyboard. I have seen hardware hacks to change the color of the backlight by adding a piece of colored stage lighting film as shown below:
http://powerpage.org/cgi-bin/WebObjects/powerpage.woa/wa/story?newsID=11997
http://powerpage.org/cgi-bin/WebObjects/powerpage.woa/wa/story?newsID=11997
The light is white and as far as I know it is controlled by software, possibly firmware and adjusted by OS X as far as being able to adjust brightness and turn it off and on. You can't use it in OS 9 primarily since the new PowerBooks cannot boot into OS 9 so I don't see how that was even brought up. The reason why I believe OS X has a part in it is because when you boot up the PowerBook in the dark, the keyboard won't light up until it loads OS X and then it suddenly pops on. It turns off as soon as you log out of OS X, also.
aswitcher, you were onto a good idea there, that would be cool.
buy surely it would be possible to control the backlight (i thought for a seond someone got a special blue model.) like it's possible to change the function of the 'sleep' light. in Gentoo, the sleep light is like the HD light, whenever there is HD activity, that light flashes, and BTW i love that feature if anyone knows how to do that in OS X, please do let us know.
or perhaps the secret is to convert everyone to use Gentoo, then maybe we can all change the backlight.
buy surely it would be possible to control the backlight (i thought for a seond someone got a special blue model.
) like it's possible to change the function of the 'sleep' light. in Gentoo, the sleep light is like the HD light, whenever there is HD activity, that light flashes, and BTW i love that feature if anyone knows how to do that in OS X, please do let us know.or perhaps the secret is to convert everyone to use Gentoo, then maybe we can all change the backlight.
aswitcher said:So moorse code is as good as it gets for hacking
Wait - I thought you could adjust the keyboard to varying levels of brightness (I haven't gotten mine yet)? If that's the case, couldn't you make it "pulse," kind of like some of the power buttons on Macs/monitors do? It would be great to implement in a screensaver.
yeah! pulsating keyboard!!
you could probably have it sync with the sleep light, so that they both pulse at the same time, sweet!
and has anyone found out yet how to get the sleep light to act as a HardDrive activity light? does anyone even know what i'm talking about with the sleep light acting as a HD light under Gentoo?
i'm dying to get that in OS X....
you could probably have it sync with the sleep light, so that they both pulse at the same time, sweet!
and has anyone found out yet how to get the sleep light to act as a HardDrive activity light? does anyone even know what i'm talking about with the sleep light acting as a HD light under Gentoo?
i'm dying to get that in OS X....
Keyboard Backlight
It is definitely controlled by the OS...
Look at the com.apple.bezelservices plist at least some of the entries starting with k (I know kHWMin, kHWMax are) relate to the keyboard backlight..
So, surely this means some small app COULD be written to control the backlight (and even override the sensors completley allowing the light to be switched on at any time?)
It is definitely controlled by the OS...
Look at the com.apple.bezelservices plist at least some of the entries starting with k (I know kHWMin, kHWMax are) relate to the keyboard backlight..
So, surely this means some small app COULD be written to control the backlight (and even override the sensors completley allowing the light to be switched on at any time?)
Imaging having a KB that pulsed to music, or have a material that responds to sound with light on the computer so when you have music playing the computer changes color according to the sound. That would be so cool on a KB!