USB keyboards on older macs?

If the older Mac has PCI, there are a number of USB cards you can use. Unfortunately, you will not have keyboard power-on capability or any mouse/keyboard access until the USB driver loads...which can be a pain if you need to access the extensions manager, or want to start with extensions off.

Nubus Macs are, far as I know, out of luck for USB.

It would be neat if a person could take a standard Apple USB keyboard, and use a ADB keyboard controller to make an adapter to support things such as soft power. You could use Quick Keys to map extra keys. What reason is there to switch anyway, I use an ADB Apple Design Keyboard on a PM G3 running 10.3, and it is one of best keyboards I have ever used.

USB isn't that complicated of a protocol. I'm sure someone could build a little grey box with a microcontroller inside that would look like a USB bus to the keyboard but which just analyzed the signals and generated the appropriate ADB input. Done.

That someone would have to have a pretty firm knowlege of ADB and USB as well as the time and desire to build such a thing, though. :-( Also, it wouldn't give an old Mac a USB port, it would just work for a USB keyboard. Probably wouldn't take much extra work to make one that worked for mice too, though. That'd be sweet.

I don't know why anyone would want to put a USB keyboard on an ADB Mac, unless it's simply because they don't have an ADB keyboard available, which are a dime a dozen at the thrift stores when you find them. I like the old ADB keyboards, especially the one that came out in the middle 90's with the ADB cable coming out from it's middle back. I've got B&W's--which still came with ADB ports--and use that ADB keyboard on all of them. I find it a lot sturdier and readable than the USB keyboards that I have used and passed on.

If you're looking for a wireless keyboard, I have seen an ADB wireless keyboard on sale regularly at eBay. It even had some kind of touchpad or something built in for cursor control, if I remember correctly.