buying mac mini soon, PC keyboard ---> apple keyboard comparisons

[macOSX-tastic]

hi all,

after much deliberation, i have decided to purchase a mac mini with the following specs:

1.25GHz G4
512MB ram
40GB hard drive
airport extreme
mac OS X tiger (obviously waiting until tiger comes standard before purchase)

total: £438.00 ($838.59 US)

i will not howver, be gettina an apple keyboard for the meantime.

are their any key changes that i should be aware of, for example the command and eject keys? any other differences?

any replies greatly appreciated.

tastic.

 

[Zaty]

hi all,

after much deliberation, i have decided to purchase a mac mini with the following specs:

1.25GHz G4
512MB ram
40GB hard drive
airport extreme
mac OS X tiger (obviously waiting until tiger comes standard before purchase)

total: £438.00 ($838.59 US)

i will not howver, be gettina an apple keyboard for the meantime.

are their any key changes that i should be aware of, for example the command and eject keys? any other differences?

any replies greatly appreciated.

tastic.

I can't tell you if there are any other differences on the British keyboard layout. I used a Windows keyboard for my PB at beginning but ended up buying an Apple keyboard because there are so many differences between the standard Swiss German keyboard and Apple's version of the Swiss German keyboard. E. g. on windows "@" is alt gr + 2, on the Apple layout it's alt + g. So I recommend you have at good look at an Apple keyboard and compare the layout with with the one you're familiar with.

 

[mkrishnan]

...on the Apple layout it's alt + g...

I find on the US keyboard layout too, Apple did a very nice job of making accents / diacritical marks intuitive. I bother to use them now much more often than I did when I used a Windows keyboard.

'Tastic, here are a few of links that are American in origin (well, at least the first two), but may help you. There is one issue some people find annoying, which is that the order of the command keys is different on macs and windows computers.

On macs:

Ctrl - Alt/Option - Apple/Command - Space

On windows:

Ctrl - Windows - Alt - Space

I believe. By default, Alt<->Alt/Option and Windows <-> Apple/Command. If you will always, or for a long time, use a Win keyboard, it's a non-issue. However, if you will switch soon, remap them now (link below) to match the Apple keyboard, so it will reduce the frustration later.

General info from Ars Technica

A thread discussing the command buttons issue

Software to swap keys

 

[840quadra]

The Macintosh keyboards also have the ever handy

-volume up
-volume down
-mute
-Disk eject

Granted there are key combinations you can use to achieve this, but why bother when you can do it with just the press of a button on the Mac keyboard.

Remember the Mini like most newer macintosh computers does not have an eject button on the front face.

840

 

[deebster]

I use a cheapo windoze USB keyboard with my iBook.

uControl (free, usual places) allows the command and option keys to be remapped and screen brightness is controlled by the 'Scroll Lock' and 'Pause | Break' keys. These appear to be f13 and f14 in their function, and no app is needed to utilize them.

Home, Page Up / Down, Delete and End all work too. And the Sleep, Wake Up and Power keys all bring up a dialog asking if I want to shut down, restart or sleep my Mac.

f12 works as disk eject and expose works fine on the f9 -f11 keys.

For volume control I wrote a couple of scripts that I attached to the USB keyboard's f keys and run them via Butler's hotkeys function.

Since my Mac and USB keyboards are both US style layout (bought in Thailand and my native British not available here) they work pretty much the same way other than the points I've already mentioned.

And for the price (about $3) it suits me fine until I get back to the UK and can plug in an Apple keyboard.