1140 When Apple announced their new line of Powerbooks earlier this year, they didn't add too many new features... except for the "scrolling trackpad," which allows users to navigate around windows by using two fingers.

And now users of some older Mac laptops can take advantage of the feature as well. A man by the name of Daniel Becker has come up with a hack that allows Powerbooks and iBooks with "W Enhanced Trackpads" to use trackpad scrolling.

And it's free!

This is a hack to activate two-finger scrolling on supported pre-2005 PowerBooks and iBooks (i.e. those with a "W-Enhanced" trackpad, including most AlBooks and recent iBooks) on OS X 10.3 (tested on 10.3.7 and 10.3.8).

It is based on Apple's AppleADBMouse-209.0.10 driver from 10.3.7 that is available as part of the publicly released Darwin source code. As such, the driver is covered by the APSL

Both the source code and precompiled binaries are availble for download, along with a simple script to see if your trackpad is W Enhanced. Installing the software requires using the Terminal, but Becker notes that he hopes to have an installer and loader available in the future.

Also be warned that this software can cause some systems to crash, and that you should create a backup of the original driver before replacing it. If you're not sure how to do this, you may want to wait for that there installer-thingee. As will I.

Bill's been using Macs since the late 80s. When he's not making smartass remarks to amuse Kirk Hiner, he enjoys fighting for the user.

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