Found an Apple Extended Keyboard II on the curb on trash day.

[glaurung]

Tested with an Imate adapter and it works fine. Treasure from trash.

Cosmetically it's not in the best shape, so I'm actually thinking of using it for myself. But... I *cannot* deal with the home row bumps being on the wrong keys. Where can I find some decent quality but affordable keycap replacements that will let me recap the home row keys so the bumps are under my index fingers where they !@#$ belong?

Also, one of the downsides of the Imate adapter is that you can't use the keyboard for any of the special Mac startup keys (like holding down option to get a list of bootable disks). I see various alternatives to the Imate on Ebay -- what's the best alternative these days?

[Blaise170]

There aren't really any replacement keys you can get since Alps are no longer in production and the only sets currently made by Tai Hao do not support any layouts other than standard ANSI. Best option is to simply swap the keys so that you get ASFDGHKJL instead of ASDFGHJKL. For converters, you can use TMK ADB, by either making your own with an ATMega32U4 or by buying one directly from the creator of TMK himself (Hasu on here and on Geekhack).

[glaurung]

There aren't really any replacement keys you can get since Alps are no longer in production and the only sets currently made by Tai Hao do not support any layouts other than standard ANSI.

Will any old Alps keycaps work? I have a Dell ALPS keyboard sitting here waiting for me to get it a new PS/2 cable, I might just declare it a lost cause and cannibalize it for parts. I really only need to replace the QWERTY keycaps, so standard ANSI will do me fine.

For converters, you can use TMK ADB, by either making your own with an ATMega32U4 or by buying one directly from the creator of TMK himself (Hasu on here and on Geekhack).

Thanks for the info.

[Blaise170]

Any Alps keys will work, but Apple used a special profile on their keys which won't match the profile of any other keys that I'm aware of. Additionally you'll be combining ABS and PBT if that is of any importance to you, as well as modifiers not being changeable due to their size.

[Findecanor]

Apple's keycaps profile on that keyboard was unique to Apple's keyboards of the era so if you want to replace only some keys then you would have to replace them all or they will end up the wrong height.
The bottom of the keys' skirts are designed to the height and angle of the contour of the keyboard case, so any other key set could look weird. The keys on the function key row have the stem turned 90° from any other keys so you might want to leave those alone.

Maybe you could cut or grind away the nubs on the D and K keys.

[glaurung]

So I'm hearing that it's not going to be possible to replace the keycaps. Darn. Swapping the letters around will just confuse the hell out of me when I look at the keys, which isn't all that often but I do look sometimes. Grinding the nubs away means no nubs, and I depend on them existing for touch typing. So it sounds like I am destined to not use the keyboard.

So I will need to try selling the durn thing. It was badly browned by the sun. I tried retrobriting it (this was last summer), and it emerged from that with mottled streaks, repreat retrobrite treatments have not worked to get rid of the streaks Plus the Apple rainbow logo is badly faded now.

I guess I'll wait till summer and try retrobriting it again. Thankfully it's easy to take apart.

[pyrelink]

I had the same experience with the AEK2 caps. Nubs on the D and K keys made touch typing quite annoying and confusing, and swapping them around made typing in complex passwords a pain

My solution was to just swap to a new keyset, but I never really considered trying to grind/sand off the nubs. While I prefer touch typing with either a nub or a concave F and J key, I can manage much better without anything, than with them on the wrong keys.

[Darkshado]

You could do something like this to put the bumps back in the standard place.

[Findecanor]

I would instead drill two holes near the bottom edge and install a piece of plastic rod inside each hole. I personally find hitting a knub in the middle of a key surface to be a bit jarring.

And ... it has been said that if you can't feel two nubs at ~2 mm apart as two distinct nubs then that would be an early warning sign of carpal tunnel syndrome.