[net.micro.mac] What foreign keyboards are there?

joel@gould9.UUCP (Joel West) (04/13/86)

I am looking for documentation on non-US keyboards, or experiences of
Mac owners overseas.

Mechanically, according to Apple's old documentation, there are
two keyboards: US and non-US.   The various non-US keyboards
have different keycaps (and software translations).

1. Is this distinction (US and non-US) still true on the Mac Plus?

2. Does anyone outside the US (presumably including all english-
   speaking North America) use a US keyboard?  A US keyboard has
   a landscape-oriented (horizontal) return key, while the non-US 
   have a portrait-oriented (vertical) return key.  I've heard a
   rumor that the Australian keyboard is a US keyboard, rather
   than a UK (perhaps because their currency is a $?).

3. What configurations are available?  An old pre-release document
   suggests:
	UK
	German (presumably including Austria and part of Switzerland)
	French (presumably including western Switzerland)
	Italian
	Spanish/Latin American (including portuguese?)
	French-Canadian (were any of these sold?)
   I've since heard tell that there is a Swedish/Danish/Norwegian
   keyboard as well.

I'd appreciate any information anyone can provide.
-- 
	Joel West	 	(619) 457-9681
	CACI, Inc. Federal, 3344 N. Torrey Pines Ct., La Jolla, CA  92037
	{cbosgd,ihnp4,pyramid,sdcsvax,ucla-cs}!gould9!joel
	gould9!joel@nosc.ARPA

stephenw@murdu.OZ (Stephen Withers) (04/15/86)

> I am looking for documentation on non-US keyboards, or experiences of
> Mac owners overseas....
> 
> 2. Does anyone outside the US (presumably including all english-
>    speaking North America) use a US keyboard?...  I've heard a
>    rumor that the Australian keyboard is a US keyboard, rather
>    than a UK (perhaps because their currency is a $?).

I'm almost certain that our keyboards are the same as the US ones, 
because we had the same keyboard problems as the Americans at the 
Cambridge AUC conference (Apple provided UK Macs).

> 3. What configurations are available?  An old pre-release document
>    suggests:....
> 	French-Canadian (were any of these sold?)

I spoke to someone from Apple Canada recently, and he told me that they
sold two keyboards, US and French-Canadian.