win keyboard fn key not working on Lion

J

jttarigan

Registered
hi,

i recently bought mac mini and decided to use my old windows format keyboard. the problem is the keyboard does not have an osx driver (which is unimportant i guess), the problem is the fn key in the keyboard is not working. osx does not recognize when i pressed the fn key (i checked it at keyboard viewer and i notice no button pressed when i press the fn key). the keyboard viewer layout also does not have the fn key.

Is there any way to make osx listen to my fn key? i need this since my fn key near the spacebar and I'm used to have cmd next to spacebar and i'm planning to remap it using double command, but osx can't 'hear' my fn key. any idea?


thanks in advance
 
as far as i know Desktop keyboards dont have "Function" Keys the only keyboards to have those are Laptop keyboards i know there is Laptop style micro keyboards for desktops with no Numaric pad. but i am not sure if these have function keys. it if does and dont work probably is because even apple laptop do not have Fn keys so without a driver this key probably wont work.
 
Everyone is entitled to guess about almost anything, and that means that a guess may often be wrong, eh? AFAIK, all of Apple's current keyboards have fn keys somewhere on the keyboard.
Apple's full-size aluminum keyboards have an fn key, in the section above the arrow keys.
also, the standard wireless keyboard also has the fn key, in the bottom left corner of the keyboard.
All current Apple laptops have an fn key, also in the bottom left corner of the keyboard.

I suspect the jttarigan has a non-standard Windows keyboard. There are some keyboards with a few keys that don't respond on an OS X system, such as those with unique hardware keys, multimedia keys, and the like. The only possibility is if it is major brand, such as Microsoft, or Logitech. The software that could be installed for those brands might activate that extra key.
 
far as i knew Apple has always has been behind times compared to the computer Market PPC Macs used IDE Drives even when PC markets were using SATA Apple still used USB 1.1 long after the release of USB 2.0 and itll probably take until OS 11 comes out befor Macs have USB 3.0
 
Please try to remember that new PPCs have not been sold for nearly 6 years now, and there's been lots of changes during that time (including keyboards, eh?)
I'm thinking you don't know much about Apple's history for the last 25 years.
Apple moves out in front occasionally. For example, Firewire and USB. I believe they were the first manufacturer to include USB on all models, and perhaps the first to get away from floppy drives. The Airport wireless cards were great advancements for their time. Apple has often been at the front with enclosure design, IMHO, and often making news with wireless in various generations. Have they usually gone the same direction as everybody else? Ah, no, and maybe that's a Good Thing™
And now there's ThunderBolt, with other computer makers also beginning to come on line with that. Some would say there's little reason to then also go to the older USB 3 tech, but no one can really know what direction Apple will take next, except for Apple. Maybe there will be a ThunderBolt/USB3 combo port - who knows?
There's been lots of articles about this subject, and more often than not, opinions rule.
And, one shouldn't ignore the other directions that Apple has taken, with some success, I think:
iPod
iPhone, (no one could have predicted the possibility that Apple could EVER sell 10 million of those, and where are they now?) and what's that other thing?-- Oh, sure, the ...
iPad
Seems like Apple does a few things OK...
 
thx for the replies, lets go back to the main problem shall we :)

my keyboard brand is eyota, don't bother googling it ;) is there a way to detect what input the fn key gives to the os? perhaps i can remap the signal to another key. is there a software for that (receiving whatever signal the keyboard sent and map it to other key)?


thanks in advance
 
im not thaling about ports an whatnot im talkin hardware for example ppc g4 had 700/800 and even 900MHz cpus when all other computers in the time frame of early g4s had atleast 1.0 ghz processors 1st 2 emacs and ibook g4s have pc100 ram when everyone else had ddr macs had 30-40gb hdds when everyone else had 60 or 80gb macs still used usb 1.1 and ide drives long after others had usb2.0 and sata as i stated before as i must add mac was still using crt in 2005 when lcds became the standard which aint a problem for me as i prefer crts becase the colour and picture quality is much better but point is even today you pay over 3x the cost of a equivlent pc for a mac in 2005 you could get a pc with crt for 500 bucks thich had faster processors and bigger hdds then what the eMac and iMac g4s offered
 
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