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Disabling the caps lock delay on the aluminum keyboard

Is there any way of turning off the accidental caps-lock press prevention on the new Apple keyboards? ( http://www.tuaw.com/2007/10/07/new-apple-keyboard-has-protection-against-acciden tal-caps-lock/)

I use my caps lock key as Control (SysPrefs -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Keyboard -> Modified Keys), and the bounce protection cause me no end of trouble - it is still enabled, though I am not using that key for caps lock.


I called Apple support, and they told me to return the keyboard. I do not think this will make a difference, but maybe a Genius can help me out.

15.4" MacBook Pro, 2.4ghz, 2gb, 160gb @5400rpm, Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Posted on Oct 8, 2007 10:00 AM

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Mar 15, 2008 8:16 AM in response to ieure

Also affected here. Starting to drive me nuts, it's sending my emacs/screen/shell finger-bindings all askew, I'm probably going to have to go with a different keyboard if I want to keep my sanity ... I've been trying to slow-down my C- key combos for weeks now, to no avail.

Please help, Apple techies, you're the only ones that can save us! :]

--Misha
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Mar 15, 2008 9:49 PM in response to ieure

I purchased a new alum keyboard about a month ago to be used as an external board for my TiPB and immediately applied the latest keyboard software upgrade. I do not have any accidental protection for this key. The Caps Lock activates on or off whether or not I press it long, short, light, hard, at the edges or in the centre. Maybe Apple has changed the keyboard action in a revision and not publicised it or maybe the software upgrade altered the accident protection.
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Mar 17, 2008 1:44 AM in response to ieure

I'm using wireless kbd and now can avoid annoying behavior by using this neat program (thanks to Nasukoji-san).

http://www.geocities.jp/nasukoji7/download/downloadsetkeyboardled.html
(Download and install SetKeyboardLED_0.2.0.zip)

After installation, caps lock LED remains ON and never experience the caps lock delay. The accidental caps lock press prevention works only when the LED is OFF.
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Apr 1, 2008 3:13 PM in response to dreish

Does it really work? Has anyone experienced any crash or instability? Do you have to set the "product_id" and "vendor_id" as mentioned on the download page?

Looks like the author had to go as far as to write a kernel extension to fix this bug...
This makes me very, very nervous, especially if the source comments are in Japanese!! 🙂
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Apr 2, 2008 10:58 AM in response to emal

Does it really work? Has anyone experienced any crash or instability?


The problem doesn't occur though I have been using this for 2 weeks.

Do you have to set the "product_id" and "vendor_id" as mentioned on the download page?


You need not necessarily set those parameters.

Only when you want to specify one of the vendors or one of the products, you should set them.
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Apr 2, 2008 11:44 AM in response to lowspeed23

Thanks.

We should probably send a bug report to Apple.

The best I could find is this feedback page:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/

It doesn't have an entry for the keyboard, so I selected MacBook, given that this bug applies to the new laptops too, apparently.

If anyone else knows a better way to let Apple know about this bug, please let me know.
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Apr 5, 2008 3:01 PM in response to TheodoreLam

You have to read the english instructions; they're somewhat cryptic. Someone posted them, here they are again: http://www.geocities.jp/nasukoji7/download/download_setkeyboardlede.html

To make it work for apple kbds (I have a wireless and that works), you have to do this from the Terminal command line:

$ sudo sysctl -w setkeyboardled.vendorid=0x5ac

(nb: that's a zero after the =)

As a previously angry Emacs user, I just love this guy for writing this, if only he had a paypal donate button!
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Apr 5, 2008 8:54 PM in response to rgiar

Got it working!

You guys are awesome! Where do I send my donation check to?

These apple aluminum keyboards take a bit to get use to, but I think they're the best designed keyboards out there. They're absolutely lovely! And theoretically you should be able to type faster with a low-throw keyboard.

Much Thanks!

T.

**

You have to read the english instructions; they're somewhat cryptic. Someone posted them, here they are again: http://www.geocities.jp/nasukoji7/download/download_setkeyboardlede.html

To make it work for apple kbds (I have a wireless and that works), you have to do this from the Terminal command line:

$ sudo sysctl -w setkeyboardled.vendorid=0x5ac

(nb: that's a zero after the =)

As a previously angry Emacs user, I just love this guy for writing this, if only he had a paypal donate button!
Reply

Disabling the caps lock delay on the aluminum keyboard

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