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    Replacing Macbook keyboard/touchpad with Thinkpad keyboard/trackpoint

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by maks, Aug 25, 2008.

  1. maks

    maks Notebook Enthusiast

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    This thread is basically supposed to be a discussion on whether this is possible.

    I had a T60 that got stolen, on which I spent lots of time fiddling with different Linux distributions. So I decided that my new laptop has to have OSX, I don't want to spend days fiddling with the OS. Windows isn't really an option.

    The problem is that I fell in love with the thinkpad keyboard and especially the trackpoint. I doubt that the 13.3" keyboard and touchpad can be anywhere near as ergonomic to use.

    The idea is to buy a replacement keyboard from one of the smaller thinkpads (14.1" or 14.0" or the X300?) and try to place it in a Macbook. I'm wondering if this could be done, unfortunately I don't have either notebook ATM, so I can't get precise measurements.

    Problems I'm already aware of are:
    -The macbook keyboard comes off as a whole, with palm rest. Whereas the thinkpad keyboards don't include the palm rest.
    -Perhaps the trackpoint does not connect to the interface that was originally there for the touchpad.
    -Getting OSX to recognize the trackpoint (probably can be done via drivers for Linuk).
    -The time spent doing this may not be covered by the time saved with a thinkpad keyboard in a macbook over its lifetime.

    Other options are (what do you think about them?):
    -External IBM keyboard with trackpoint. Though these supposedly don't have support for Macs (drivers).
    -OSX on a thinkpad. Again I'm afraid of spending lots of time fiddling with OS issues.