I'm afraid I've mostly lurked on this list for a while and I
apologize if the subject has been covered before, but just in case
it's helpful... I certainly didn't find anyone who seemed to have
done the deed when I Googled this up a few times over the last year.
Short answers:
* You *cannot* use iBook G4 keyboards on iBook G3s without putting an
extension on the ribbon, which, if you don't mind, we'll say is a
nontrivial exercise, to put it mildly.
* You *can* use G3 keyboards on G4 with a few caveats. One, you'll
have to fold the ribbon like a "Z" over on itself, which is not the
recommended way of using a ribbon cable. Two, you'll have a slight
bow in the keyboard that'll make it poke up just enough you'll likely
scrape the screen with your keyboard's keys.
I had a G4 keyboard go flakey on me (never liked it as much as the
iBook G3 keyboard, and it finally acted so wacky I either had to
clean it #shudder!# or use it as an excuse for this experiment) and,
after pulling another keyboard from a limping iBook G3, the things
looked similar enough I thought it was worth a shot. So far, so
good. The bent-over ribbon does concern me a bit, however.
The iBook G4 keyboard doesn't have a particularly nice feel, imo,
though the metal keyholders do seem a bit more robust. I've had
issues on my G4 kybd with the space bar not being so responsive and
with random keys repeating at the slightest pressure (particularly
"h", fwiw). Taking a little out of a G3 keyboard's ribbon would seem
a nice way to get a good typing-feel into this very nice laptop. I'd
considered downgrading to an iBook G3 900 to get as much perf as I
could with the nicer keyboard, esp since Small Dog had told me that I
couldn't swap in a G3 kybd for the G4. Glad I found out differently,
so far. I'm not so sure they were wrong -- the keyboards *aren't*
interchangeable. But, again, you can take the G3's to the G4.
Anyhow, there you go. Hope that helps someone at some point.
Ruffin Bailey
--
Another rant from a so-called professional programmer...
http://MyFreakinName.blogspot.com for more drivel.
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