Today's boot fair and charity shop stuff

[ffutures]

Another Mac USB keyboard (the big white plastic type) and Mighty Mouse
Some odd Apple connectors, a couple of DVI to VGA and an iPhone to VGA one which doesn't seem to work unless I'm doing something wrong.
A x2, 2.5, 3 teleconverter, M42 screw. Total cost £12, hopefully profitable.

and (from a charity shop) a story-telling game I've never heard of before called Never Ending Stories. Seems to be aimed at kids but should be playable by anyone, and has some rules that feel a bit like Once Upon a Time plus a map-building mechanic with hexagonal tiles.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/8674/never-ending-stories

Doesn't appear to be based on the book or film by Michael Ende, but interesting. And only cost £1.50

Comments

[history-monk.livejournal.com]

A question, if I may?

You understand Macs and keyboards fairly well. I have to use Macs a fair bit for software development. I like keyboards with a fair bit of mechanical action, so I loathe their modern style ones. I have a white plastic one at present, but it's dying, with keys getting stuck regularly.

Can one use a USB keyboard meant for a PC? There's no CD eject key, but that's not necessary on modern Macs. If not, what are the most mechanical keyboards that do work on modern Macs?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

The non-alphanumeric characters won't correspond to the key caps - since they include @ and # and \ it can be a bit annoying - and the function keys won't work for things like volume control etc. But there are plenty of older Apple USB keyboards around, they aren't exactly rare despite what some sellers may claim.

CEX currently have a Pro Keyboard for a fiver plus P&P, which I think is £2.90 (cheaper than I could do it) - the one that has a a full cursor and numeric pads, and a USB 1.1 port at each end. They preceded the white plastic ones with two USB 2 ports at the back. Knowing CEX it's probably a black one, but I suspect that doesn't matter to you. They're older but stronger than the USB 2 ones and built like tanks. Looks like it's the last one they currently have:

https://uk.webuy.com/product.php?sku=SPERKAAPUMCA#.WLIWD_JIOUk

For some reason they're charging £15 for the white USB 2 ones, which is a bit on the high side.

Normally I'd offer to let you have that USB keyboard I got today at cost, but I haven't tested it yet and I may be picking up another iMac G4 next week, if so I might need it myself. Sorry about that.

[history-monk.livejournal.com]

Purchased the CeX one. Thanks!

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

OK - let me know if there is any problem, I may end up with a spare keyboard of some sort if the deal I'm looking at falls through.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Further to my previous message, the G4 I just bought came with another keyboard so I do have a spare if all else fails.

[history-monk.livejournal.com]

Thanks - waiting for CeX to deliver.

[history-monk.livejournal.com]

The CeX one arrived yesterday, and works fine. It's a lot better than what I was using. Thanks very much.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Glad to help. CEX is always worth checking for stuff like this, they're often cheaper than eBay, their postage is VERY cheap, and they guarantee that things work. I just bought a couple of drives, a 160gb IDE and two DVD-RW DL IDE, for £13.50 inc. P&P