G4 Powermac Hardware advice

[Matt_H]

Any keyboard and mouse will work. Apple intended the mouse to hang off one of their keyboard's USB ports, which explains the small number on the machine itself. You could probably get one of those era Mac keyboard for pretty cheap, otherwise there might be some generic keyboards that have a similar feature. Failing that, there are hubs and USB2.0 PCI cards.

[Matt_H]

Well, I'm certainly not going to complain that the proprietary ADB was replaced by standard USB. If it wasn't, then the easy mouse and keyboard replacement we're talking about in this thread probably wouldn't be possible. Besides, it was probably the last move to a recognized standard Apple made. All their other interfaces are proprietary now!

As to why no one else did something like ADB, Commodore was working on it. I think it's mentioned in either the 1993 DevCon notes or a later Dave Haynie interview, but of course they folded before it was fully developed.

[Matt_H]

What Apple Interfaces are proprietary? They have USB 2.0/3.0, Display Port, and Thunder Bolt. Only one which could be considered proprietary is TB which it licensed from Intel

Well, I was speaking more rhetorically than definitively. But still: MiniDisplayPort and Thunderbolt, while not technically proprietary, aren't (noticeably) used by anyone else. And before that they had MiniDVI, MicroDVI, and MiniVGA. Then there's the 30-pin iPod connector and now the "Lightning" connector on the iPhone. So maybe it's not all their other interfaces, but they certainly seem to be embracing the general concept of vendor lock-in.