Categories
Archive

Steinway PowerBook: Installing an iBook Keyboard in a Lombard/Pismo

In my attempt to give my Pismo a custom look, I found a few ideas. Many moons ago on ogrady.com I had remembered seeing an ibook keyboard fitted on to a Pismo. I desperately wanted such a custom look. I had seen the ads for keyBORG but I really was turned off by the techno style text (although I hear they are shipping ones with normal text). In my search for an ibook keyboard, I was finding dead ends everywhere. As it turns out nobody actually can sell you this keyboard part. I did however find out the part number is PN: JF0070101000.

steinway pismo
Click for a larger image.


In my attempt to give my Pismo a custom look, I found a few ideas. Many moons ago on ogrady.com I had remembered seeing an ibook keyboard fitted on to a Pismo. I desperately wanted such a custom look. I had seen the ads for keyBORG but I really was turned off by the techno style text (although I hear they are shipping ones with normal text). In my search for an ibook keyboard, I was finding dead ends everywhere. As it turns out nobody actually can sell you this keyboard part. I did however find out the part number is PN: JF0070101000.

steinway pismo
Click for a larger image.

I tried the usual places, the CompUSA parts department, the PowerBook Guy, Sun Remarketing, and both of my local Mac stores in Boise Idaho. I found www.pbparts.com on the Web, and they in fact do carry this part and are willing to sell it to you for US$165. I was frustrated by this price because I did not feel like a keyboard was worth that much, so I turned to eBay. It appears as if the market price for a new ibook keyboard (still sealed in Apple’s packaging) goes for between US$80 and US$120, although I paid US$76 for mine. I liked the orange highlights instead of the blue because it’s catchier to the eye.

Once my new keyboard arrived at my house a week later, I opened up the packaging and was rather disappointed to find out that the cable that connects to the PowerBook is different than the iBook keyboard.

 WIDTH=
Click for a larger image.

This did not stop me because I had seen on the digitalHipps Web site the instructions for replacing the keys on the keyboard. As the Web page states, it is a simple task, and takes about 30 minutes. While I had all of the keys off my Pismo I cleaned off some of the insides because of an incident last year involving an EWU college party, Rolling Rock and an ex girlfriend that wouldn’t listen, leaving some of my keys sticky. When replacing the keys you can also replace the little colored plastic things right above the left and right arrow keys to get rid of most of the ugly bronze look.

This new keyboard in combination with a glowing red Apple logo gave me a PowerBook look that made even a few of my PC friend jealous. It’s nice to hear, “whoa, that looks cool” from some of our Mac nemeses. If anyone is interested in a brand new iBook keyboard with Pismo buttons, feel free to contact me:-).

 WIDTH=
Click for a larger image.

By Jason O'Grady

Founded the PowerPage in 1995.