Hardware & Technical Keyboard for Mac?

Stealthie

Stealthie
One of my neighbours is an old dear who's partially-sighted.

She's got a Mac Mini which, for some reason, has a teensy black compact keyboard.... that she can't see properly.

I had a quick look around the internet and I was quite surprised there aren't a lot of choices for keyboards for people with poor vision.
There are a couple of generic USB keyboards for the visually impaired available, though.

Trouble is, they all appear to be "Windows" keyboards, which is to say they've got a "Windows key" either side of the space bar.

I know nothing about Mac's, other than that the hardware is usually pretty nice but the OS is utter garbage.

So, two specific questions:-

1) Will the "Windows Key" on a keyboard operate as the "Function Key" (the one with the squiggly symbol on it) on a Mac?
2) Does a Mac keyboard have any other functionality that WON'T be present on a standard Windows compatible keyboard?

Beyond that, is there anything else I should be thinking about before attempting to connect a Windows-compatible keyboard to a Mac Mini?

For reference, this is the sort of thing I'm thinking of buying for her: https://www.posturite.co.uk/accurat...G0K6JYDEGvBTbT7EmBs-DzCHzHDppKY0aAm7mEALw_wcB
 

Chris Simon

Chris Simon
Stealthie said:
I know nothing about Mac's, other than that the hardware is usually pretty nice but the OS is utter garbage
Click to expand...
Actually no, you got it the other way around - the hardware is utter garbage. The cheapest components, lead-free solder and monkey level of board engineering. It's the easy to learn software that makes it desirable for some people.

Anyway. Any USB or bluetooth keyboard will work on Mac, but unless it's a universal KB with a Win/Mac switch (either software or hardware, I've seen such keyboards) the "Win" key and other possible Windows-specific keys simply won't work.
 

Stealthie

Stealthie
Chris Simon said:
Anyway. Any USB or bluetooth keyboard will work on Mac, but unless it's a universal KB with a Win/Mac switch (either software or hardware, I've seen such keyboards) the "Win" key and other possible Windows-specific keys simply won't work.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. (y)

Disappointed to hear that the "Windows Key" might not work as the Function key on a Mac.

Given the lack of these things that are available, you'd think that the manufacturers would try to make them compatible with as many different computers (PC and Mac) as possible.

Is there, by any chance, any 3rd-party software I could download to make a Windows Keyboard fully compatible with a Mac? :unsure:
 

Morbad

Morbad
Having been actively avoiding Macs since the early 1990s, this is one of those questions that I never had, but am now curious about.

Chris Simon said:
lead-free solder
Click to expand...

To be fair, it's almost impossible to buy any electronics that don't use lead-free solder nowadays and lead-free soldering has improved quite a bit since RoHS first showed up and tanked the reliability of early compliant devices.
 

Chris Simon

Chris Simon
Morbad said:
Having been actively avoiding Macs since the early 1990s, this is one of those questions that I never had, but am now curious about.



To be fair, it's almost impossible to buy any electronics that don't use lead-free solder nowadays and lead-free soldering has improved quite a bit since RoHS first showed up and tanked the reliability of early compliant devices.
Click to expand...
That is true, but to a degree. General SMCs are kind of fine (albeit much more sensitive to moisture and liquid damage), but solder balls under chips, for example, are still a problem.
It's not a problem in a desktop, but in a laptop, and especially Mac used professionally (read: heat-cycling like crazy) it sucks.

(Sorry for OT, Stealthie. We probably made sure no Mac-ist will ever reply to this.)
 
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Morbad

Morbad
Chris Simon said:
That is true, but to a degree. General SMCs are kind of fine (albeit much more sensitive to moisture and liquid damage), but solder balls under chips, for example, are still a problem.
It's not a problem in a desktop, but in a laptop, and especially Mac used professionally (read: heat-cycling like crazy) it sucks.

(Sorry for OT, Stealthie. We probably made sure no Mac-ist will ever reply to this.)
Click to expand...

Even BGA and FPGA balls have generally been lead free for some time in consumer electronics. Apple really doesn't have a choice, they couldn't legally use leaded solders in many components in a Mac, even if they wanted to. RoHS regulations are the cause of this, even in areas where they aren't law, as most manufacturers aren't going maintain different production lines for different reasons.

Exemptions 14, 15, and 15a seem to be the relevant ones:

The general exemption (14) expired in 2011 and the current exemptions mostly covers medical, industrial, and special purpose scientific or military applications. The 15(a) exemption (not active yet) is interesting as it would seem to be targeted at multi-chip modules.

Anyway, chances are that if you buy an recent laptop, CPU, or GPU, nearly all the solder balls, even those connecting a CPU/GPU die to it's substrate, and that substrate to the main PCB, are going to be lead-free. Better solders and underfills have generally been able to mitigate most of the problems RoHS regulations have caused. There were a few high-profile issues with components using lead-free solder balls ('bumpgate'), but those have largely been resolved.
 
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