Post by D.M. ProcidaPost by Jon BPost by D.M. ProcidaCan I take the backlit keyboard from a broken PB G4 and put it into
another that didn't originally have a backlit keyboard? Or does it
require some on-board thing to work properly?
Not sure, those fitted with BL keyboards have an ambient light sensor
under each speaker grill which yours won't. But I'm guessing the lights
just USB powered, and the sensors are just software & control it.
Without the OS control, it may well just stay on permanently.
No, it has the sensors - they are also used to dim the screen.
Post by Jon BFirst question will be, are the connectors on the end even the same?
I'll have to check - but I am sure that it would be cheaper to make one
kind of keyboard connector than two, so I think it's likely they'll be
the same.
Have a look at the repair guides at iFixit. The main point I noted from
a quick glance is that there are signficant differences between
generations. They list three different keyboards for 15" aluminium
PowerBook G4s: early model non-backlit, early model backlit and late
model (always backlit).
From a look at the repair guides, later series (where backlighting was
standard on all 15" models) have a keyboard with a separate connector
for the keyboard backlight.
In earlier series (where backlighting was optional on 15" models), the
backlight was actually implemented with light pipes in the upper case,
and you need an upper case matching the keyboard. There may be
mechanical differences which make it difficult to use a backlit keyboard
in a model which originally didn't have one, unless you also replace the
upper case, and that may have compatibility issues with other
components.
If you can get an early model backlit keyboard into a non-backlit model,
it won't have have backlighting, of course, since the backlight hardware
will be missing.
--
David Empson
***@actrix.gen.nz