Turning on Full Keyboard Access for PB G4

Question

I'm a new Mac user with a PB G4 15". I've searched the forums for an answer to this to no avail.
In The Tao of Mac (http://the.taoofmac.com) the author says: "If you're keyboard-oriented, go into System Preferences | Keyboard and Mouse | Keyboard Preferences and Turn on full keyboard access. Now you can deal with dialog boxes the way you're used to, as well as accessing menus and toolbars with the keyboard."
When I try this on my PB, there is no "Turn on full keyboard access" button - although the Keyboard Shortcuts tab does have a checkbox for "Turn full keyboard access on or off" with a shortcut of ^F1 (which doesn't seem to do anything).
I'm very keyboard literate and would like to access menus in the same manner as i can with Windoze - i.e. Alt-underlined letter in menu, e.g. Alt-f brings up file menu.
Any help most appreciated.
Regards...john...
Powerbook G4 15-inch   Mac OS X (10.4.3)  

Answer 1

This may make-or-break my resolve to switch to Mac.
While I adore the interface, the graphics power, the
art/design tools and sensibility of the Mac, it
really is like "typing with boxing gloves on" as
someone warned. Makes sense for an OS that
introduced the GUI and the mouse, I'm still finding
it difficult to adapt to that style of work. For
me, taking my hands off the keyboard to use the
mouse is anathema.
You have nearly as much keyboard control as on Windows, it's just different. And in some cases, better. For instance, when two menu commands start wit the same letter, the alt key can't be the same for both commands, so Windows assigns a different letter to one of them so you have to learn it. The Mac way can be faster because you don't have to learn the alt key; instead, you just start typing the command name and it's selected as soon as a match is made. For example, if I have two commands, "Slide Show Options" and "Save Slide Show as Movie," I know that there are no alt keys to memorize, as soon as I drop that menu with the keyboard, typing "sl" will select "Slide Show Options" and typing "sa" will select "Save Slide Show as Movie."
In dialog boxes, be aware that many Mac developers have implemented single-key shortcuts for buttons, which do not require full keyboard access to be turned on. For example, if a "Save changes before closing?" dialog box comes up with "Save and Close," "Don't Save," and "Cancel" buttons, and "Save and Close" is the default, the Enter key will hit the default key, the Esc key will hit the Cancel button, and the D key will hit the Don't Save button. It is also possible, depending on the app, that the S key will hit Save and Close and the C key will hit Cancel.