Apple Keyboard III

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Apple Keyboard III

Will Puckett created and shared a shield to convert the classic Apple M0487 keyboard to ZMK/nice!nano.

Will Puckett
Published August 1, 2024

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I've been working on a shield for the M0487, aka the Apple Keyboard II:

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While some of the older Apple Keyboards are treasured for their mechanical switches, I've long had a soft spot in my heart for the Apple Keyboard II, perhaps the most reviled of vintage keyboards amongst mechanical keyboard enthusiasts.

The mushy-feeling rubber domes that aficionados despise take me instead back to elementary school, to the first keyboard I used that was small enough to hold in my lap.

The size made this era of macs more relatable to me as a child.

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I discovered KBD.news over the holidays in 2022. When I saw the wonderful work that people do to Marie Kondo typing, I initially considered making a Corne with the keys and rubber domes from the Apple Keyboard II to feed my nostalgia. I ordered one and immediately disassembled and cleaned it.

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When I started looking at the membrane more closely, I decided it would be fun to pay homage to the original as much as possible and create a hacky shield that would modernize the keyboard without having to use some hacky adb adapter instead.

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Tracing the 24 different traces through the membrane was an eye-crossing endeavor. Last week, I finally took the time to locate an alternative part for the flat cable connector on LCSC and ordered the PCB, which sockets a Nice!Nano v2.

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The board is diodeless and has quite a bit of I/O for something its size (80 keys), with Ctrl, Option, Command, Shift, and Caps Lock directly connected. I used a shift register to squeeze everything in, with just enough pins on the two main Nice!Nano headers. I used the shutdown button on the top of the keyboard as the reset for the Nice!Nano, so it's easy to reflash without having to crack the case.

The PCB files and a compiled ZMK firmware are on github. I set the firmware up for qwerty and Engrammer, which I prefer. Everything is up and running, and the PCB fits surprisingly well in the case. There's room for a huge batty which should allow for very occasional charging.

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I even did a little experimenting with setting up home row mods. I was afraid they would be a total disaster with the potential ghosting on diodeless, but only S and = seem to have a problem with my index finger shift mods. Cmd + F doesn’t work, but I haven’t thoroughly tested Ctrl, Option, and Command too far beyond that.

Casual use hasn't surfaced anything major, other than how fatiguing the keyboard is to my forearms – the rubber domes take quite a bit more actuation force than I'm accustomed to.

I had to do a minimum order on JLCPCB, but I only need one, so I put the extra shields on my etsy shop.

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