Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ncar!mephisto!mcnc!rti!dg-rtp!poirier From: poirier@dg-rtp.dg.com (Charles Poirier) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Optical Mice. Summary: Rebuttal Message-ID: <1990May3.211920.18284@dg-rtp.dg.com> Date: 3 May 90 21:19:20 GMT References: <18184@snow-white.udel.EDU> Sender: usenet@dg-rtp.dg.com (Usenet Administration) Reply-To: poirier@dg-rtp.dg.com ( Poirier local) Organization: Data General Corporation. RTP, NC. Lines: 71 In article <18184@snow-white.udel.EDU> BARRETT@owl.ecil.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett) writes: >I find mechanical mice to be very aggrevating. I use a BOING! mouse here, ^^^^^^^^^^^ >and it is an absolutely wonderful mouse to use. If you like it, fine. But I find the optical mouse most aggravating. >But all of the systems at school -- ^^^ >including the big & expensive workstations, all all of the MAC systems ^^^^^^^ >-- all use machanical mice. They wear out easily,and develop a "skid" ^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^ >so that they start to not work in certain directions. Almost every skid problem I've seen was cured by this simple procedure: 1) Pop out the ball. 2) Pop open your pocketknife. 3) Ruthlessly scrape off all the black stuff from all three rollers. Those are *not* traction bands, they are solidified hand grease. 3a) If there is cat hair wrapped around the roller spindles, pick that off with a pair of tweezers. 4) The ball is coated with hand grease too. Wash the ball with lots of detergent and dry it. If you omit this step, the problem returns much sooner. 5) Pop the ball back in. The one skid problem that this didn't cure was traced to a broken conductor in the cable; a problem which could happen as easily to an optical mouse. I'm hardly surprised when students trash their environment and don't do anything voluntarily to improve it. Cleaning, eeyuck. Sheesh, I've had to clean my terminal screen several times, but does that make it inferior, as a display device, to a teletype? >Optical mice are great because they cannot wear out (except for the >buttons) and are generally higher resolution than mechanical mice. Can you support these claims? Note that on the Amiga, the mouse cursor (any Sprite actually) is displayed with only 320-pixel resolution, even on a high-res screen; but the input device does see full 640-pixel resolution from the mouse. Try using Deluxe Paint in hi-res with coords turned on, and see what I mean. How much higher resolution do you need? > -MB- I know people will think me mean and arbitrary for saying this, especially anyone who this shoe fits; but the fact is, sloppy spelling, typos, and bad editing hurt one's credibility. Clean it up and you'll be better received. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Specifically, the Mouse Systems mouse I use at work bugs me because: 1) I had to tape the silly mat to my desk, thus permanently burning up an 8" by 9" area; 1a) The area is too small. For my Amiga mouse, I covered my whole desk with two big pseudo-cork mats. Now I can mouse around anywhere, and still can use the whole desk for any normal desk-type use! 2) It suffers from significantly more cursor backlash upon lift/replace than I get with my Amiga mouse. The optics are near the back, so my normal tilt-up-and-lift motion doesn't decouple the optics until the mouse front is a good half inch off the mat. 3) Occasionally the mouse is left sufficiently between pixels on the mirror grid that it can't quite decide where it is, and the cursor oscillates erratically on the screen between two positions. Ugly and brainburning. Roller mice can't malfunction in this mode. Three cheers to Commodore for resistance to inappropriate trendiness. I wish they'd started out with three buttons as standard, but I can understand not changing the standard at this late date. 3 Cheers, Charles Poirier poirier@dg-rtp.dg.com