Mac Forum / General / Hardware / January 2005

Possible? Sure... ANYTHING is possible, including pigs sprouting wings
and taking off for the dark side of Pluto.

Practical? Fat chance. Unless this is one of those "I'm doing it just to
prove that throwing sufficient time/money/effort at a probem will always
overcome any difficulties" projects, I'd strongly advise you not to
waste the resources it's going to take to move it from the realm of
theory to reality. A "Windows Ready" keyboard with at least (if not far
more than) the capabilities of a Mac Classic keyboard isn't going to run
much more than about 20 bucks.

(And I know several places, even in this technologically bass-ackwards
enclave of quasi-luddites I live in, where I can find a minimal
Windows-targeted keyboard that will plug in and "just work" for under
$10 - Assuming I had any use for one...)

The ADB (Apple Desktop Bus) plug was a patented configuartion, so the
plug will not work in Wintel box without some custom plug adapter.  Then
there is the communications stream.  ADB has its own protocol that
allowed multiple devices to daisy chain harmoniously.  This allowed
multiple keyboards, mouse, trackball, joystick and zoom fax/modem to all
work on the ADB.  And the Mac OS had a communications buffer that did
not require the interrupt handlers MS mice were notorious for back in
the day.  I am not sure a driver could be written to successfully
support an ADB device.

jt

You can do it with Griffin iMate ADB-USB adapter. No drivers necessary.

Best - Andrzej