Other Great USB Keyboards, Cooler Running Laptops, the Value of Old G3 Macs, and More
Charles W. Moore - 2007.12.17
Another Great USB Keyboard
From Stephen:
Charles:
I enjoyed your article about alternative USB keyboards. Unfortunately,
it's a couple weeks late for me. But that's okay, I'm very pleased with
my new Matias Tactile Pro 2.0. I think it deserves a mention even
though it is a bit pricey.
I've been trying for a very long time to keep my old Apple Extended Keyboard II working with my
Quicksilver through a Griffin iMate. But every Tiger update would
make it quirkier, and it's not officially supported any more above
10.3.9.
So I splurged and bought the Tactile Pro. It cost about the same as
the old Extended keyboard when it was new 15 years ago. It has a very
nice clicky feel and has really improved my typing. They claim that it
has the same key mechanisms as the old Apple keyboards, and it sure
feels like it. It's very solidly built, and I expect it to last as long
as the old Apple Extended Keyboard, though who knows if USB 2.0 will be
around in 15 years!
Stephen
Hi Stephen,
I tested the Matias Tactile Pro some time ago, and
it's an impressive 'Board - spectacular-looking and evidently high
quality. You can read my review, Has 'the
Best Keyboard Apple Ever Made' Been Resurrected?
However, it's a very different 'board from the
Kensington SlimType.
I understand the appeal of these "clicky" keys, but
for persons with neuropathy-related typing pain, they are about as bad
as it gets. With both the Matias Tactile Pro and the Apple Extended
Keyboard II (I have one of those as well) as little as a minute or two
(literally) of typing will have the nerves in my arms and hands burning
from fingertip to shoulder and neck.
I suspect it's a combination of the serial tiny shock
impacts of the over-center action that makes the "click", and the hard
landing at the bottom of the key's travel. The worst keyboard of all in
this regard in my experience is the one that came with my old Mac Plus. On the other hand,
membrane-type keyboards, whose feel some deride as "mushy", suit me a
lot better, but the least troublesome of all are the ones with the
combination of membrane and mechanical scissor-action with a light
touch, short travel, and soft landing exemplified by the best laptop
keyboards and the Kensington and iRocks 'boards I reviewed here last
week.
Thanks for your comments.
Charles
Charles:
I somehow missed your original review of the Matias when I was
looking for a new keyboard.
I understand now about the soft touch keyboard and the neuropathy
problems. That would certainly make a keyboard like this one impossible
to use. I learned to type on a real live manual typewriter and have
never been able to slow down my "punch". Also, years of being an
acoustic musician and tying knots for a living (I used to have a
business building commercial fishing gear) have given me pretty strong
hands. And being a computer admin for at least a decade kept the
"punch" going - switching keyboards all day long made me push 'em down
pretty hard to make sure the command connected because every keyboard
had a different touch.
I really dislike laptop membrane keyboards, they drive me bonkers
because I type a key and it gives me multiple characters. I probably
type with the backspace key as much as any other one!
Thanks for your reply,
Stephen
Hi Stephen,
I also used manual typewriters for years, and indeed
you did have to hammer the keys. I developed chronic neuritis not long
after I switched to using computers, although I don't consider typing
on computer keyboards a causative factor (the neuritis affects me all
over my body, and I don't type with my face or feet), but definitely an
aggravating one. I do remember reading somewhere that mechanical
typewriters are not nearly as conducive to RSI as flat computer
keyboards because of the "springiness" of the key arms, their being
configured in graduated tiers, and the fact that you have to take
regular breaks from typing to whack the carriage return.
I also used to be an acoustic guitarist, but the
neuritis has pretty much ended that, although I've hung on to my Guild
D-25 (one of the last batch made with the solid flat back in 1973) and
my customized Harmony Sovereign 12-string.
Charles
Comments on the Kensington SlimType Keyboard
From Walt in CA:
Charles,
I am also a big fan of the Kensington SlimType keyboard - and here
is another reason to like it: you can get essentially the same keyboard
in a Mac and Windows version. I use a Windows unit at work and a Mac at
home. It is very handy to have the same basic keyboard in both places;
the few differences are minor. My only complaint about the Mac version
is the two control keys in the lower left. Odd. Why not give us a user
programmable key?
Like you, I have found this keyboard to reduce discomfort associated
with typing. I get the same benefit at home and work, and the
Kensington is vastly better than the stock Dell keyboard.
Keep up the good work!
Walt in CA
Hi,
Good point about the platform ambidexterity, which is
typical of several Kensington products, and applies to the iRocks
version of the keyboard I profiled in the review as well.
The redundancy of Control keys is a quirky bit of
weirdness with these 'boards. I don't mind a whole lot, as I use the
Control keys a lot, and it's handy to be able to just stab at the
general direction of the end of the bottom row, however it would
probably have been more sensible to leave out the extra Control key and
make the remaining three to the left of the spacebar wider, especially
the Command key.
The SlimType is the most comfortable keyboard I've
ever used, and that includes several purpose-designed "ergonomic" types
that cost a lot more than $30-$40.
Charles
Another Good USB Keyboard from MacAlly
From Jeffrey:
Charles,
I've read with interest your discussion regarding the Best
Alternative USB Keyboards. I've found pleasure in one that was not
mentioned in your article: The MacAlly
IceKey. Now, I cannot make any claims regarding its feel or
qualities compared to the other third-party keyboards that you
mentioned, since I do not have experience with them, but compared to
Apple's offerings, I consider the IceKey a dramatic improvement, and so
I offer it up for your consideration.
Regards,
Jeffrey
Hi Jeffrey,
Yes indeed. I tested the MacAlly IceKey four years
ago, and until I discovered the Kensington SlimType, it got my vote as
being the closest to my benchmark of keyboard excellence - the PowerBook WallStreet keyboard.
It also uses laptop-style, short stroke,
scissors-action keyswitches, but I have to give the SlimType the edge
for comfort thanks to its somewhat lighter touch than IceKey, although
even the SlimType's action is stiffer than my ideal, my only real
complaint about the 'board. The WallStreet's keyboard's touch is about
perfect; light, short, butter-smooth, and with a soft, slightly
flexible landing.
However, I like MacAlly products, and the IceKey is a
very nice keyboard.
Charles
Cooler Running Laptops
From Bryan:
Hi Charles,
Interested to see you're only getting to 40° C, it must be
colder in Canada than New Zealand! I was running (processor
bottom-side) around 55° - 58° with Leopard 5.1, and this along
with the backlighting on the keyboard being far more enthusiastic - and
thus more difficult for me to see, has convinced me to go back to Tiger
10.4.11. The fan comes on far less with Tiger on my 1.33 GHz 17", I'm running Mail, Adium, Safari
and Lightroom normally.
Really enjoy and appreciate your column on LEM.
regards
Bryan
Hi Bryan,
You're happily right: It's colder here than in NZ -
extraordinary so this year, as winter came early, at least by recent
standards, and it hasn't been above 0°C for a week. We usually
don't get snow that sticks until after Christmas here on the Atlantic
coast of Nova Scotia, but it came with December this year.
On the PowerBook 17" front, you may find my OS X
Odyssey 901 column on Applelinks,
Keeping Temperatures Down With Leopard (and Tiger),
interesting:
As I type this, I'm running in OS X 10.5.1 Leopard,
dialed up to the Internet for the past three hours, and the processor
bottomside is reading out at 36.5° C. It's not that cold in
the house either.
I've found that the charm is selecting either
"Reduced" or "Automatic" in the processor speed pull-down menu of the
Options pane in the Energy Saver Preference panel.
Works with Tiger as well, and for some strange reason,
Leopard seems to run cooler at "Reduced" than OS 10.4.11 does, although
the opposite obtains on "Automatic" or "Highest."
Charles
MacBook, PowerBook, and Other Laptop
Temperatures
From Andrew:
Charles,
I really enjoyed your article on a cooler running laptop. Such a
thing actually does exist, but sadly Apple isn't selling it. It is
called an ultra-low-voltage processor (ULV), and they are commonly used
in ultraportables due to their tiny, low-capacity batteries. Currently
many manufacturers sell ultraportables with the Intel ULV Core 2 Duo at
1.66 GHz. This is quite slow for a processor these days, but in the
ThinkPad X61s that I tried, idles at 36°C and topped out at 60°
Celsius, never causing the fan to roar. Of course, it is used to
stretch as much runtime as possible from tiny batteries (the X61s runs
for 4 hours on its slim 4-cell battery, and a whopping 10 hours on the
big 8-cell), but such a processor would be perfect in a low-noise/low
heat role as well.
I don't own that Core Duo MacBook
that you mentioned in your article anymore, largely on account of all
of the heat-related defects. My daughter's third generation (pre-Santa
Rosa) Core 2 Duo (2.0 GHz) MacBook
idles at 44° Celsius and tops out at 72° Celsius when playing
Doom 3, which is a whole lot cooler than the first generation MacBook I
used to have. My current ThinkPad T60p (2.16 GHz Core Duo) idles at
43° C and tops out at 65°C while the ThinkPad R61 I just bought
for my associate (1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo Santa Rosa) idles at 41° C and
maxes out at 68° C.
My guess is that the Core 2 Duo chips run a bit cooler than their
Core Duo predecessors, and that the internal architecture of a laptop
has just as much to do with its operating temperature as the processor
itself. The two MacBooks clearly show that the Core 2 Duo is
cooler-running than its predecessor, but based on the smaller degree of
difference in the ThinkPads, the laptop's cooling system, made up of
fans, heatsinks, and other measures, likely matters even more.
I remember reading all of the complaints about the original 867 MHz 12" PowerBook getting so hot that the
cases warped, while the 1.0 GHz Rev B
model that I owned (and the 1.5 GHz Rev
D I bought later) were significantly cooler.
Take care,
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for your note (and article referencing my
column!)
Interesting about the ULV Core 2 Duo processor.
Probably a lot faster than the 550 MHz G4s in my Pismos even so.
Glad to hear that the Santa Rosa MacBooks have
simmered down somewhat.
One thing that Leopard has done for me is got me
experimenting with using reduced processor speed in the Energy Saver
Preference panel. It works pretty well. Most of the time I don't notice
any speed slowdown, and set at Reduced the G4 PowerBook runs in the
40° to 47° range when warmed up and working fairly steadily
(i.e.: online and surfing or emailing).
Switching to Automatic, which is supposed to adjust
processor speed according to demand, bumps up operating temperature a
few degrees to the high 40s/low 50s range, but still comfortably below
the fan cut-in threshold of 58.5°.
With the setting of Highest, the temperature cycles up
and down between 54° and 60° at about one-minute intervals.
Cutting to the chase, reducing the processor speed
makes using Leopard (or for that matter Tiger) a lot more pleasant on
this machine. I just have to remember to crank it up before using
iListen dictation software, which is pretty sluggish a Reduced
speed.
Charles
Wouldn't the automatic setting bump it up for you with iListen? On
an unrelated note, all of the lower-case i-names are getting to be
annoying, don't you think?
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
Yes it does. However, with Leopard at least I find
that if I leave it on Automatic, it does tend to get into the cooling
fan from time to time even doing routine things like email, so I'm
inclined to run in "Reduced" and activate "Automatic" or "Highest" as
required when I do something processor intensive like dictation that I
really need the extra power for. Most of the time, it's perfectly
satisfactory at the "Reduced" setting for my purposes.
The iNames are a bit of a pain when typing (and
dictating), but in general I kinda' like them.
Charles
Life in the Old Dogs Yet...
From Chris:
Hi Charles,
Thought you'd be interested to hear this story since you're a big
fan of the WallStreet PowerBooks....
Recently over here in England, the clocks went back, and it started
to get dark really early, and I started to feel uncomfortable
travelling home after a day's work at University with my Core 2 Duo
MacBook, even in a relatively nondescript backpack - partially my
paranoia, but I got to thinking how I could be hugely inconvenienced
with my main machine stolen (or lost or destroyed in an accident) if
the worst were to happen.
I started to look at the Asus
EeePC - £219 for a Linux-based subnotebook didn't seem like
bad value, and it would hardly be the end of the world if anything
happened to it.
But then I got to thinking about something that was shoved in a
drawer and forgotten after its last hissy fit - my dead WallStreet.
Nine years old - it had been refusing to do anything last time I tried
it, but I dragged it out, plugged it in and . . . it bonged.
POSTed fine, showed the Happy Mac, and then the screen went black, it
bonged again and began to load Panther. (Normal behaviour - it hasn't
loaded OS 9 in a very long time, and I suspect it won't until I
start zapping the NVRAM and such, which I'm loathe to do since it could
render 10.3 unbootable.)
Since then, it's been travelling to and from Uni with me each day
and hasn't been too argumentative since I worked out that the left
expansion bay is a bit dodgy and moved the battery to the right hand
one. True, the battery only holds a 21% charge, but there's power
sockets liberally scattered around the campus and ethernet points make
up for the lack of an AirPort card. True, it's big and heavy, but it
goes and is quite a talking point when I pull it out!
I still find the most amazing thing to be that a little machine with
a 266 MHz G3 runs OS X 10.3.9 - it's not at any great speed, but
it works. I know it would likely be a lot quicker under 9, but I'm a
latecomer to the Mac (2005), and I've never gelled with 9.
Anyways, all the best and keep up the campaign to show that old
computers aren't useless!
Chris
Hi Chris,
Thanks for the WallStreet anecdote. Always delighted
to hear about people still getting useful service from them.
Still useful indeed. My wife is still using ours as
her main axe running OS 9. She could switch to my old iBook running
Tiger, but OS 9 is really fast on the old 233 MHz machine, and for
some reason Google Gmail works exceptionally well with Netscape 7, so
she's in no hurry to migrate, also taking into account that the
WallStreet keyboard is so superior to the iBook's.
At just short of nine years old, the original battery
is just about licked, but it still holds a bit of a charge, and she
doesn't use it much as a mobile computer.
Back on Standard Time here in Nova Scotia too. Dark at
about 4:30 PM. I expect earlier in the UK, since you're farther north.
We're right on the 45th Parallel here.
Charles
The Value of Upgrading G3s
From Brin
Hi Charles,
I have a specific example of the value of upgrading the G3: my
10-year-old daughter. G3s tend to fall into the hands of the avid
Machead for little to no financial investment. My daughter uses the
Internet for homework and watching some episodes of her favorite anime.
The G3 is nice for such an application because of it's low initial
investment vs. upgradability. The G3 currently runs the latest build of
OS X 10.4.11 with 1 GB of RAM and a series of sub-40 GB drives.
Most of these are upgrades out of other machines that were purchased
and upgraded in their own right, and the best of the lot trickled down
to this machine.
It works well for her needs, and if a large hot chocolate were to
mysteriously appear all over the insides of the machine, most of the
value of the machine could be reinstalled in a newer model. The only
thing lacking is a more serious video card. The Rage 128's 16 MB of
VRAM is proving a serious liability in today's visually overdriven
internet. For the smallish sum of $60 or so I believe a suitable
replacement can be found.
Much like a teenager's first car, you need a first computer to be
modern enough to be usable but old enough to be expendable.
Regards,
Brin
Hi Brin,
I agree with you about both cars and computers for
teens. Expendible is better. A downer for our family at Christmas 1999
was that my son's year-old WallStreet got stolen on the bus as he made
his way home.
Fortunately, the insurance company came through, and
the purloined laptop was replaced with a Lombard a couple of months later, but it
leaves a bad taste.
Charles
Booting OS 9 from RAID
From Eric:
Hello Mr. Moore,
I'm sorry to bother you, but I hope I don't take up too much of your
time.
I have gotten two G4s, one with an internal SCSI card. I'm not sure
what it is yet, I believe it is an Adaptec, but it might be an ATTOS. I
haven't stripped them yet.
Anyways, I have two 9 GB SCSI drives, and I was wondering if you can
set up and boot OS 9 in a RAID environment from SCSI controllers
without using software. I've been searching the Internet, but OS 9
configurations are spare, and I'm sure this was not something 90% of
most Mac owners did with Mac back when this equipment was new.
My goal is the fastest disk speed possible for digital audio
recording.
Sincerely,
Eric
Hi Eric,
I've never tried it with the sort of setup you
describe, but I would be exceedingly surprised if it wouldn't work.
I never had any trouble booting OS 9 from any SCSI
configuration I ever did try - no other software necessary.
If you want to test, just drag an OS 9 System File,
Appearance Folder, and Finder file onto your SCSI drive, put them in a
folder named System Folder, and select that volume from Startup Disk.
You won't be able to do much with it without a full install, but it
should tell you if it will boot.
Charles
iBook G4 a Bit Weak on AirPort
From John:
Hello there,
(I'm not sure whether this counts as a laptop problem or an AirPort
one so I'm hedging my bets in sending it to both of you!) A friend
recently bought an 800 MHz 12" iBook G4 from eBay as a Christmas
present for his wife, and as the local Mac guy he came to me to set it
up. It's a nice little machine with a decent battery after four years,
upgraded RAM to 640 MB and came with an AirPort Extreme card already
fitted much to his surprise as he'd already bought another one.
I did a clean install of Tiger for him, ran all the updates, and
have the machine up and running nicely, ready for a new convert to the
Mac. But there is one issue....
Compared to my 12" PowerBook G4 and the other Macs in the house, the
iBook gets a very weak signal on WiFi. I found it would fall off my
2007 AirPort Extreme network for no apparent reason, while my own
computer would still be connected just fine sitting by its side.
Wanting to investigate, I booted the iBook from a FireWire caddy I
happen to have 10.5.1 already installed on and used the Leopard only
trick where you hold down option before clicking on the AirPort menu in
order to see detailed stats. Sure enough, my network was showing up
with an RSSI (a measure of signal strength) of -78 or so, compared to
my PowerBook's -58. For comparison my Mac Mini which lives sitting on
top of the base station has a signal of -33.
Since my friend had a second AirPort Extreme card to try, I duly
swapped them around and found exactly the same weak reception. To test
the laptop's internal antenna I even tried leaving it disconnected from
the card to see if it would make a difference: it does, no networks at
all would show up that way. So the antenna is working, and it is
connected properly. Same can be said for both cards . . . but
the end result is not great.
Also, since the signal strength is weak the data transfer speed is
quite choppy. I copied three gigs of files to the laptop just fine when
sitting on the same desk as my base station, but just downstairs it's a
different story and single megabyte files can be tricky.
I've heard that the new AirPort Extreme base station I have is among
the strongest WiFi hotspots on the consumer market, so I'm concerned
that the laptop will be less than useable on my friend's non-Apple (and
likely budget priced) base station. I took the laptop to another
friend's house to try out his network and found (to my surprise) that
it wouldn't show up at all unless his WiFi router was set to channel 9.
I've never had anything as strange go on with the handful of Apple
laptops I've used before ... very odd.
Do you have any ideas?
Thanks for listening,
John
Hi John,
Wish I could help, but I'm anything but a WiFi or
AirPort expert.
Perhaps someone in readerland will have something to
offer.
The antenna is working to some degree, but I'm
wondering if it may be damaged or defective and delivering only a weak
signal.
Beyond that, I'm stumped.
Charles
Hi Charles,
Fortunately Dan Knight was able to
provide me an answer in no time: the iBook's AirPort Extreme
antenna cable needs to be pushed into the card for a second click. It
was only halfway in when I was doing it, no matter how fully done it
looked at the time.
Thanks anyway,
John
Hi John,
That's happened to me before with PC Cards. Glad you
got it sorted out.
Charles
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