I'm afraid my one year old has gotten hold of my keyboard and now everything looks like its a photo negative - and although I am considerably older have no idea how to fix the thing....maybe I should ask his sister - she's 2....

I thought I'd have to wait until he was a bit older before I'd have problems with him and the PC..... :-)

That's a good prank to play on colleagues with Macs. Your little one must be very devious!

Here's the solution: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107329

"You can toggle the display between positive and negative by using the Control-Option-Command-8 key combination. First, press and hold the modifier keys (Control, Option, Command). While holding the modifier keys, press 8.

The screen will go blank for a second and return in the opposite mode."

If you need a company to help you out for a repair, we are at your service, (if it is hardware damaged).
good luck.

Fixed it

But I want to know how he managed to do it in the first place - how did his small hands get those 4 keys at once....
Hopefully I have a future Bill Gates to keep me when I'm older

I don't think the reply would fit well with this thread, that should be the "how can kids do that" thread. It is amazing sometimes really.

Not if you have a Mac at home . Bill Gates and Mac? That would be like Christ and Satan, (don't know which is which though in this case ), but it all started somewhere.

From the Apple website, it sounds like it doesn't have to be those specific four keys that can trigger it. Instead, any time a large number of keys are pressed at the same time, it may happen. However, once it has happened only those four keys will switch it back. Seems very odd, but worth knowing since we also have an iMac.

Maybe you can influence your son's career - buy him turtlenecks and jeans now and he'll turn into a clone of the insanely grrreat Steve Jobs. Or buy him more geeky apparel and building brick toys and he'll become the next incarnation of Apple's chief tinkerer The Woz.



Nah, it's just the one four key combination that triggers it. "Many keys" is just a more gentle substitute of "essential key combo that the humble user failed to know".

In that case, it sounds like they deliberately set this up as a potentially useful feature that some people may want to use. What could possibly be the use of such behavior?

Apparently it was made for certain visual impairments. For some people it's easier to read white text on a black background, for example.

Left forearm on the lower left three keys, supporting him as he bashes all the other keys with his right fist?

Perhaps. Bill "I am the bill that must be paid" Gates did, reportedly, keep saying to the early Windoze developers "make it more like the Mac".

Well, on the very Apple page referenced earlier I can't read the writing at the bottom of the page without fiddling with the contrast and brightness controls.

Reversing the image, I can read it perfectly.

Top tip thanks.

Not quite ... Bill invested some $150 mio in Apple, way back when AAPL was languishing at $5 a share (yes, I know ...). So they may have had their differences once, but now with AAPL quoting north of $150 ....

Yup just like Christ and Satan.... (if you know your bible)...wont get into religion, but Christ had some investment into Satan before he grew the horns...
It is clear that Windows and Mac have gone their seperate ways, BUT with Vista, it seems to be coming back to Mac styling with fading windows. crazy!