Are IBM UltraNav keyboards OS X compatible?

I have the same keyboard you showed in your photo and it works just fine with my Mac Mini running Leopard.
Both the trackpoint and UltraNav work fine.

Mac Lovin wrote:
Hi,

I used Macs all my life until my school made me buy a PC. Now that I'm about to graduate, I can't wait to buy a new Mac. The only thing I will miss about my ThinkPad is its amazing keyboard, specifically:
1. UltraNav with scrolling TrackPoint (that little red dot) and touchpad.
2. The webpage back and forward keys nestled on top of the left/right arrow keys where other keyboards just have wasted space.

IBM/Lenovo make external UltraNav USB keyboards with those features. Does anyone know if IBM's keyboards will work in Mac OS X? If so, do all the features work? If OS X does not support the TrackPoint and forward/back webpage buttons, is there any third party software or homemade fix that would allow me to enable those features?

Here's a photo of one of an UltraNav keyboard: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tkyte/206453843/sizes/l/

Here are links to the specific UltraNav keyboards I would buy:
http://www.amazon.com/IBM-USB-Keyboard-UltraNav-31P8950/dp/B00009APTK/
http://www.amazon.com/IBM-31P9490-Keyboard-Thinkpad-Black/dp/B0002PUIAA/

Thanks for the advice!

Welcome to the Apple boards.
Your best bet is to contact the manufacturer of the keyboard, or borrow one and try it out.
I had a similar situation before I bought my first Mac, my G5. I needed to know if Apple finally supported a real mouse with all the buttons and such. I had an MX900 for my PC, so I brought it to an Apple store, and even though they assured me it would work, they did let me set it up and Voila! it worked like a charm. On that basis alone, I bought my first Mac. That old mouse that looked more like a foot had always turned me off. 🙂
There is nothing like trying it out to prove it. Or disprove it.

Message was edited by: nerowolfe

Mac Lovin wrote:
Thanks for the reply. I just spoke with someone who uses an IBM keyboard on a Mac, and he said that the Trackpoint scrolling feature and forward/backward web buttons don't work. Do you know of any keyboard remapping software or keyboard drivers that could enable those features?

Actually I just thought of a possibility - check for Ubuntu and/or Linux drivers. Mac OS is essentially BSD which is close enough to Linux for jazz, and if you search for Linux drivers for your keyboard, you might find one. Most of the 3rd party apps and such I run on Leopard such as Gimp, OpenOffice, etc., are/were originally created for Linux, but the port to BSD is little to none.
If there is a way that's where you will find it.

It works, but not as good as in Linux or Windows (Linux has powerfull native driver for the stick/pad portion).

In Linux, the stick can't be configured as a button or a scroll stick, so I configure the mouse pad for the purposes. To clock, just quick touch the pad; to scroll, just move my thumb on the pad up and down or right and left (and my index finger is still on the stick for moving the mouse). This is even better than the Windows way of using the stick for so many different tasks.

The two specal keys are actually sending 'Option+Left' and 'Option+Right' (Alt-Left and Alt-Write in Windows world). In the default short-cut key mapping, these two keys move you back and forth between spaces. The bad news: Safari doesn't support tab page switching with the keyboard. You may give Firefox or other browser a try.

I love Mac Mini, but I can't say the same to Mac OS X for the single reason that I can't take the full power of the fancy UltraNav keyboard.

I'm running Tiger (10.4.11) and have the full sized version of the IBM ultranav keyboard (model 31P8950). The trackpoint works fine, as do the back and forward browser keys in the arrow area of the keyboard. The volume buttons at the top left of the keyboard also work. One thing that does not work properly is the middle trackpoint button - in most applications it is ignored. (In Firefox this button correctly activates trackpoint scrolling.) I want to emphasize that the left and right trackpoint buttons, the ones with the red stripes, work properly - the left button works as a left mouse button, the right button, when held down, acts as right mouse button.

I've only had this keyboard for a couple of days but I've decided it's a keeper- while typing the trackpoint is much better than a mouse or touchpad since your fingers don't have to leave the home keys. The web browsing experience on this keyboard is also great - I control the touchpad with my left hand and the arrow + browser keys with my right. For traveling purposes, though, the compact version, sans number pad, would be better.

I'm using the USB UltraNav keyboard to run my 13" MacBook headless with an external monitor. It works fine, with the exception of the lack of middle-click scrolling in some apps (in Firefox this works perfectly); and inability to turn off the trackpad.

The latter can be annoying as occasionally when typing the base of one of my thumbs grazes the trackpad and moves the cursor somewhere else, sort of like in Asteroids when your ship goes into Hyperspace...or, for a more modern example, like when the battery is dying on your wireless mouse.

Still, a minor complaint and it's happening less often as I'm getting used to keeping my thumbs off the trackpad.

Easy fix for middle-button scrolling: download Smart Scroll, turn on grab scrolling, reverse x and y directions, and choose option do not move mouse when scrolling. Free to try. $19 to buy. Works great.

I just wish I could turn the trackpad off. I don't hit it with my thumbs, but lying back with the keyboard on my lap, just pressing on the palm rests flexes the keyboard enough to send a spurious click. And suddenly my cursor moves to someplace random. Grrrrr.

Hi,

I've always used a Mac laptop at home, but a Windows laptop for work. I do have this Ultranav keyboard which I used at work with the Windows box. But now, I've switched to using a MacBook Pro at the office as well and would like to start using this Ultranav keyboard on my Mac. I have Leopard on the MBP and seems like all the keys map properly, trackpoint and mouse buttons work fine ... except that I don't know what the Option/Alt and command keys map to. There is no "Windows" key on this Ultranav, which I know maps to the command key in normal Windows keyboard. Any ideas?

Thanks.

I have several of the UltraNav travel keyboards (the ones without numeric keypads), and have been using them successfully with Macs for quite some time.
In System Preferences->Keyboard->Modifier keys, there's a pulldown for picking which keyboard to edit. Choose your IBM/Lenovo keyboard, and then change the Option (Alt) key to send Command instead.

Interestingly enough, this (at least on my setup with OS X 10.5) changes only the left Alt key to send Command. The right one is still Alt (Option). So you can get both keys.
This also has the side effect that the back/forward webpage buttons now map to Cmd-Left and Cmd-Right, which gives them the meanings you normally want them to have in Safari.

Note that the middle button can be redefined from the Mouse preference pane.
I have mine set to Exposé.

The trackpad and trackstick both work fine, but there's no scroll wheel equivalent without using
additional software. (and I've yet to figure out which ones work well for this)

Other keys that work on this keyboard are the 3 volume control buttons (up/down/mute),
and Fn-F4 (suspend). The thinkpad/util button, and other Fn combinations don't seem to work
though.

Overall, I think these keyboards are great, and they work quite well with the Mac.

Oh, and the other keyboard modifier change I made was to convert the Caps Lock key to send Control instead. This isn't necessary, and is more a matter of personal preference, but having the extra Control key seems to me to be far more useful than a Caps Lock key that can get accidentally bumped and stuck on.

To get rid of false clicks on the trackpad, unplug it. Unscrew the keyboard case and unplug the connector on the trackpad. Problem solved.

I love my ultranav and wouldn't have switched to a mac unless I was able to make it work. Smartscroll works great and is totally worth the money.

I don't know why so few keyboard manufacturers understand the importance of keeping your fingers on the home keys. Only IBM/Lenovo offer the touchstick. Trackpads not only send false movement/clicks when you hit it with your thumb, they can send when you flex the trackpad by putting your palms on the palmrest with the keyboard over your knee.

I've mapped the ctrl key to command, so my ctrl-c on my windows machine at work and my cmd-c on my mac at home will do the same action.

I'm going to have to use Quicksilver to see if I can get the home/end keys to go to the beginning and end of a line like they do on a PC.