Another Keyboard Story

My laptop is 5 years old, but the computer at my desk is even older. It could as many as 9 years old. I could go try to find a receipt, but I don’t feel like it.

It’s had its ups and downs, but it’s a Mac, so I’ve been blessed with not so very many downs. It’s had its hard drive replaced at least once. Given the type of work I do, it’s all still working fine and meeting my needs.

But this morning I dumped a cup of coffee on the keyboard.

I know.

This happened to me a few years ago. So I bought a new (Mac-compatible) keyboard. All was well, I thought, until I hit the key that is used to open the disk drive.

Nothing happened.

And apparently I have one of the only models Mac ever made that does not have some exterior way on the tower to open a disk drive. It relies solely on that one tiny key at the uppermost right.

If there is a disk in the disk drive, I can drag it to the trash. That works fine. But once the drive is closed again (and one wants the drive to be closed), there’s no way to open it up.

Of course, back when I made this unpleasant discovery, I called a Mac dealer or two. It turned out that the particular keyboard that worked on that particular Mac had long ago been discontinued, and the new keyboards were not going to open my disk drive.

Not long after, I happened to be visiting a dear friend who had gotten a new computer. And I noticed, in a corner of her office, a keyboard just like my old one. She gave it to me. I’ve happily used it ever since.

Until this morning.

After I sopped up the mess and tested the barely-wet-at-all-really keyboard, I dragged out the backup keyboard, this keyboard, which I had held onto for just such an [inevitable?] occasion. Now that I have wireless, I think I should be able to transfer most files to my laptop and burn a CD from there if I need to.

Still, what a pain in the ass.

Yet another friend and computer geek has a Mac keyboard that she says is configured like the one I described. She bought it a couple of years ago. Just because it’s configured that way doesn’t mean it will work on a machine as old as mine, but I’ll borrow it to see. If it works, maybe they’re still making it.

Of course, I’m denying that after nearly a decade, perhaps it’s time get a new computer. But it’s so painful, both money- and transitionwise. There are always complications. There are printers and routers and cables involved. Everything has to talk with everything else. Software needs to be reinstalled. I don’t know how to make it all work. (I have a guy, of course, who does, but not technically at my beck and call.)

And, you know what? I freakin’ love this keyboard. I like the feel of these keys. I feel like I’m typing much, much faster. Or at least it sounds like I am. I love that sound.

So why, oh why, can’t it just open that disk drive?