Mac Forum / General / Hardware / November 2004

Yes, but in all likelihood you won't be able to use the keyboard's power
key, if it has one, to start up your G3.

Gabriel asked:
<< I have a beige PowerMac G3 with Mac OS 9. My good ol' ADB keyboard is
starting to die, so I have to get a new one. My Mac has some USB ports via
an expansion card. I was wondering: would a USB keyboard work for me?>>

Yes, but realize that if you have a USB keyboard attached through a PCI/USB
card, you will not be able to use any of the "key combinations" during the
startup cycle, such as holding down the shift key to disable extension
loading, etc. - the reason being that the USB card will not be "active"
_until_ the USB-related extensions load during the boot process.

As a low-cost alternative, try going to ebay and searching on "SuperMac"
and "UMAX". From time to time, I've picked up brand-new Supermac-labeled
ADB keyboards there for about $10 including shipping (using one right now).
A better solution, in my opinion.

- John