And if it was a PC keyboard, Mac OS X 10.3 Panther didn’t know how to remap it. Buyers were expected to buy an Apple mouse and keyboard, use the USB mouse and keyboard from their PC, or buy a new mouse and keyboard. Why did Apple finally bite the bullet on PC keyboards? Because in January 2005 it had introduced the Mac mini as a “bring your own keyboard and mouse” machine. For the first time, you could reassign the keys on a PC keyboard so you didn’t have to “type different” to use the Control, Option, and Command ( a.k.a. Mac OS X 10.4 TigerĪpple pretty well ignored the issue until it released Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger in April 2005, at which point it added a wonderful feature to the Keyboard & Mouse system pref. There were different versions of uControl depending on your version of OS X up to 10.3.9.

Mac OS X 10.0-10.3.9īy some time in 2004, I was using the free uControl system preference that let me reassign keys, turn off Caps Lock, and much more so I could type as though I was using a keyboard with a real Mac layout. The long-discontinued Acer Aspire keyboard in the above photo has been used with my Macs since I acquired it in 1999, back in the Classic Mac OS Days, and it worked well with the free version of USB Overdrive using the Classic Mac OS. In the OS X 10.4 version of the Keyboard system preference, your settings would look like this: Regardless of which version of the Mac OS you are using, what you want to do is reassign the following keys to let your PC keyboard become layout equivalent to a Mac keyboard: The Command and Option keys are reversed from what we’re used to Which Keys to Remap The only problem is these keyboards are all designed for Windows computers, not Macs, and by default, some of the keys are in the “wrong” location as far as Mac users are concerned. (Some of their ‘boards have excellent reputations.)

You can even use a Microsoft keyboard if you’re so inclined. The nice thing is, since Apple’s switch to USB, you can use any PC keyboard with your Mac. That’s it, and they tend to cost a lot more than PC keyboards – even good PC keyboards. Apple and a few other companies make USB and Bluetooth keyboards with the Mac layout. Face it, there aren’t a lot of Mac keyboard options out there.

End on mac keyboard