[comp.sys.mac.hardware] Northgate keyboards and Mac II's

michael@otago.ac.nz (03/22/91)

We just bought 2 Northgate OmniMac ULTRA keyboards and two Mouse Systems little
mice to use on our Mac II's (a II and a IIx).  When used together the keyboard
does not work, unless it is plugged in *after* startup.  Both the mouse and
keyboard work fine by themselves or in combination with an Apple keyboard or
mouse.  Worse yet we find that the Northgate keyboard and Little Mouse work
together fine on a IIci and a LC (that's all we have tested), but not on our
Mac II's :-(

An ADBReInit call will always kill the Northgate keyboard.  It will not respond
until unplugged, sometimes this will not solve the problem either.  It seems
the keyboard micro gets trashed during initialization, as an inspection of the
bus often reports a device of type 13 at ADB address 8, but no keyboard,
sometimes the keyboard just disappears.  Through all this the Mouse works fine.

Anybody got any ideas (apart from selling the keyboards)?


Michael(tm) Hamel, Computing Services Centre, University of Otago, New Zealand