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kkorn4325 · Mar 27, 2004, 12:59 AM

I was wondering if it was posible to change the color of the back light keyboard from white to another color.

Also, what is the speed of a new Superdrive in a 15" Powerbook? It takes me 1 hour to burn a full dvd with toast.

Fuzzy

rag on a muffin · Mar 27, 2004, 01:53 AM

i'm sure its possible, but the question is: is it possible to install lights in the 12 inch model?

pull off some of the keys and check how they are lit. but watch out because the fiber-optics might be attached. i would like to know this too, but remember, i'm not responsible if you bust it.(just in case someone tries to pull a lawsuit on me because they broke their keyboard)

nate_02 · Mar 27, 2004, 02:24 PM

superdrive speed is 1x in the PB. With a firmware update NOT supported by Apple, you can get it up to 2x.

If you wanna update your firmware, search the forums for the website.

acadian · Mar 27, 2004, 04:14 PM

Superdrive speed on the 15" Al and rev 17" is 2X DVD-R and 1X DVD-RW. Dont try to mess with the backlight on the keyboard.

macplus · Mar 27, 2004, 04:43 PM

Actually, on the 17" the keyboard is lit through a system of fiber optics that terminate at two leds. It appears the LEDs can actually be unsnapped from the fibers so this isn't that far fetched an idea. Here are a couple pics:
http://www.eldocountry.com/keyboard

tooki · Mar 27, 2004, 05:01 PM

Same on the 15".

No fibers are connected to the keys -- it's basically fiber-optic fabric that glows as a sheet. (If you look at the keyboard, it's glowing even between the key caps.)

rag on a muffin: don't be rude and try and hijack the thread. The backlit KB on the 12" has been discussed many, many, times, and the conclusion is, it can't be done, at least not with Apple parts.

So, should it be possible to change the color? I suppose you could either replace the LEDs with ones the color you want, or you could put in color filters. But I'd be VERY worried about breaking the connector between the fibers and LED.

As for the SuperDrive... in a 15" AlBook, it's a 2x drive. Perhaps Toast is burning at 1x for some reason? Try saving to a disc image from Toast, and then use Disk Copy/Disk Utility to burn that image to DVD. Apple's software should burn at the maximum supported burn speed.

tooki

tooki · Mar 27, 2004, 05:02 PM

P.S. This is a company that makes exactly the kind of fiber optic backlighting that Apple used in the PowerBooks. They've got neat pix on the site, including diagrams of how it works.

http://www.lumitex.com/

tooki

kkorn4325 · Mar 27, 2004, 06:53 PM

Im not going to mess with changing the back light I probally would try it and ruin the whole powerbook. For the dvd burner doesnt anyone know where to get the firmware update to make it burn at 2x. i looked and had no luck.

macplus · Mar 27, 2004, 07:37 PM

Is the firmware update safe? I'd love to go for it but worry that there are a lot of screwed up drives out there. Opinions?

rag on a muffin · Mar 28, 2004, 01:15 AM

i saw how a guy made his ibook keyboard backlit. i cant find the site again, but it was really cool. does anyone know if the same keyboard is used in the 15" backlit and 17" as the 12 inch, just without the fiberoptics attached?

Drakino · Mar 28, 2004, 02:06 AM

If you have a backlit keyboard and a screen that is 15 inches, you have a 2X Superdrive already.

Mind you, you do need DVD-R discs that support 2X speed. I know CompUSA here was selling DVD-R discs dirt cheep, and on closer inspection, they were 1X.

DVD-RW, the drive will burn at 1X period, no matter what media you give it.

For me on my Powerbook, it does take about an hour at 1X. iDVD and others that have to process movie files may be doing this before they actually start burning, so it is possible Toast was doing some preprocessing for half an hour, then burning for the rest of the hour.

kkorn4325 · Mar 28, 2004, 05:11 AM

I also have a windows computer with a sony dvd-+rw burner which burns the same size dvd as my apple but in 30 min not 1 hour like my Powerbook, i will wait the extra 30 minutes to burn the dvd because my powerbook produces better quality like the word matching the mouth better thehn my pc.
Ever since i recieved my powerbook i barly used my pc. I did and still have problems with my cd/dvd drive not reading my adobe creative suite cd which pissed me off because it was a $400 program.