Subj : Re: Computer Broken
To : poindexter FORTRAN
From : Bob Worm
Date : Fri Sep 12 2025 03:31 pm
Re: Re: Computer Broken
By: poindexter FORTRAN to apam on Fri Sep 12 2025 07:01:04
Hi, pF.
> Don't know if I could
> tolerate a mechanical mouse again - I spent most of the '90s cleaning
> mouse gerb out of the workings...
I remember when optical mice (without the special 'graph paper' reflective mat) started to become mainstream. "What a pointless change", I thought at the time.
Now in the 2020s I get to use a ball mouse (or "mouse", as they used to be called) again and... Man, are they crap!
I spent an embarrassingly long time thinking my ball mouse was broken - actually it was too begin with, an ex school mouse which has a Phillips screw to stop kids pinching the ball and so some genius had tried to pry it out with a pencil and made the circular hole no longer circular. Anyway, I continued heating and straightening and sanding that long after I probably needed to because I forgot the golden rule: ball mice need a mouse mat!
Well, I don't have any of them but the cardboard back of a writing pad works a lot better than my shiny desktop.
