2nd keyboard+mouse attached through USB to a beige G3 MiniTower?

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2nd keyboard+mouse attached through USB to a beige G3 MiniTower?

My main working desktop machine is my G5 Quad. A 1998 gray G3 Mini Tower, upgraded to a G4 by means of a PowerPC G4 card is networked via Ethernet cable through a router and runs Mac OS 9.2.2. The keyboard and mouse are ADB.

The Mini Tower, when in use, drives one of my dual desktop monitors attached to the G5 Quad, both of which have built-in switches for two computers. When the Mini Tower is not in use (95% of the time), that monitor resumes its normal role as my secondary monitor.

So far so good. 😎

Complicating matters a bit, a QuarkXPress Passport dongle is installed between the end of the keyboard cable and the computer ADB port and is necessary for QuarkXPress to be activated.

What want to do now is to connect a USB keyboard and mouse cable from a KVM switch (or whatever it's called) so that I can use my regular wired keyboard and mouse for my three desktop computers. The Quark dongle would continue to be attached to the ADB port of the Mini Tower.

Whether the Quark dongle will work in that setup or not will be easily determined by trial and error, no problem there.

• So, my question to the awesome hardware experts here is simply whether I'm running any risk ⚠ of damage to my hardware by trying such an arcane combination of USB and ADB connections.

Obviously, the cause for this conundrum is that Quark cannot supply a USB dongle any more, and the price of the required two current versions of QuarkXPress Passport is a whopping $3,000 to cover my eight working languages (have to buy two different versions, while my old version of QuarkXPress Passport covers them all in one single version). 😠

I've tried ADB-to-USB adapters with no success,

It would really be nice to have a single keyboard and mouse for two or three working desktop computers: the Mini Tower, the DP MDD G4 and the G5 Quad.

Thanks in advance.

rgc

PowerMac, Mac OS X (10.4.11), 2.5G5Quad,16GB,7800GTX 512MB, Tiger

Posted on Mar 25, 2012 6:45 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Allan Jones

Level 9

68,690 points

Mar 25, 2012 10:54 AM in response to Ramón G Castañeda

Hi Ramón,

I have two Beige G3 mini-towers--one is heavily upgraded, That one has a PCI USB expansion card and I've used both ADB and USB boards simultaneously. The computer is now 12 years old and, although mostly retired. still works fine.

In fact, with the special startup key combos needed to troubleshoot the "Old World ROM" Macs like Beige, it was a VERY good idea to leave an ADB board connected but tucked out of the way, available if you needed to do maintenance and troubleshooting startup key combos like Safe Boot, starting from an optical system disk, or resetting the PRAM.

I've tried ADB-to-USB adapters with no success,

Does that mean you've tried a PCI adaptor card? The problem today is that many of the USB 2.0 cards (often with four ports) are too advanced for the Beige G3. I have an old Macally UH2-222 with two external USB 1.1 ports and one internal USB 2.0 port. This card has a vendor code that includes "1033" when viewed in System Profiler. That means it has an NEC chipset.

Such cards with OPTI chipsets--Profiler shows these with "1045" included in the vendor code---were very troublesome in Beige G3s. Some worked but many diplayed a litany of problems that varied from making the computer finicky to stopping it in its tracks.

I've not used QExp since the OS 8.6 days and cannot say if the dongle works with an expansion card.

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Answer 2

BDAqua

Level 10

239,177 points

Mar 25, 2012 11:36 AM in response to Ramón G Castañeda

My last Beige had ADB KB & USB Mouse running, if that's any help.

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Answer 3

Mar 25, 2012 11:54 AM in response to Allan Jones

Thanks for the comprehensive response, Allan 🙂

Allan Jones wrote:

I've tried ADB-to-USB adapters with no success,

Does that mean you've tried a PCI adaptor card?....

No, not a card. Just in-line adapters of various brands (e.g. Griffin), the pigtail kind where the ADB cable connects at one end and it has a USB plug on the other end to be plugged into the computer.

http://www.amazon.com/Griffin-2001-ADB-iMate-Universal-adapter/dp/B000067V8L

My Beige G3 Mini Tower already had USB1 and Firewire409 cards when I bought it used in 2002, presumably added in by the original owner.

The QXP dongle is currently connected between the ADB keyboard cable and the ADB port on the Mini Tower. It works fine, there of course.

When I tried the various ADB-to-USB in-line adapters, I had unplugged the ADB keyboard and was trying the adapters between the ADB keyboard + ADB QXP dongle and the USB ports on the USB1 card. That never worked.

Allan Jones wrote:

Hi Ramón,

I have two Beige G3 mini-towers--one is heavily upgraded, That one has a PCI USB expansion card and I've used both ADB and USB boards simultaneously...

In fact, with the special startup key combos needed to troubleshoot the "Old World ROM" Macs like Beige, it was a VERY good idea to leave an ADB board connected but tucked out of the way, available if you needed to do maintenance and troubleshooting startup key combos like Safe Boot, starting from an optical system disk, or resetting the PRAM....

That is tremendously helpful information, Allan. Thank you so much!

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