Mastodon/Fedi: The social network for people who have actually cleaned mouse balls 🖱️
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️ I still clean my trackball’s ball every day. -
@jamesrg @RachelThornSub @pussreboots @FlockOfCats and out of Acorn grew ARM
@Workshopshed @jamesrg @pussreboots @FlockOfCats Not naming it "OAK" was a missed opportunity. The image of an arm growing from an acorn is disturbing.
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@Felila @RachelThornSub @FlockOfCats watching the disk play tetris with the data and pray it worked after
almost as much fun as setting the interleave factor on old ST-506 hard disk interfaces
@M0PWX @Felila @FlockOfCats That rings a bell, but I can't for the life of me remember what "interleaving" was.
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@RachelThornSub @wonka @Felila @FlockOfCats and to use that hard disk to store your OS and applications, it's surprisingly disappointing to find that your general storage hard disk which hasn't been defragged in years barely needs it!
@hmantegazzi @wonka @Felila @FlockOfCats Yes, it takes the fun out of it to start it up, scan the disk, and see that it actually doesn't need de-fragging (if only because that means fragmentation isn't what's making your computer slow, so you have to look for another cause).
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Mastodon/Fedi: The social network for people who have actually cleaned mouse balls
️@FlockOfCats @patterfloof We had a tool to clean the insides - looked like a mini golf ball on a stick. Take out ball, spray with foam cleaner, wipe with cloth/paper towel. The stick this into the mouse body, and rotate it and move it around to remove all the "mouse jam"...
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Mastodon/Fedi: The social network for people who have actually cleaned mouse balls
️@FlockOfCats@famichiki.jp
Whatever did we do before optical mice / trackballs?
I always prefer alcohol based wipes - no messing around drying off and you can guarantee they're clean; the trackball and the inner cradle.
Still a good idea to have mini blower & vac.
Also I am old enough to have had / used non GUI computers. -
Mastodon/Fedi: The social network for people who have actually cleaned mouse balls
️@FlockOfCats My friend swallowed one.
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@abartlet @cy @FlockOfCats As was I, but I use a trackball these days. I'm back to having to clean it.
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Mastodon/Fedi: The social network for people who have actually cleaned mouse balls
️@FlockOfCats do tractor feed printers next
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Mastodon/Fedi: The social network for people who have actually cleaned mouse balls
️@FlockOfCats
More than once I was called to fix a friend’s or relation’s computer and all that was needed was a mouse ball clean out. I was highly praised and revered. They still sing songs about my amazing feats! -
lol this is such a boomer post, like “boost if you used to drink from the garden hose!!” But I do amuse myself greatly by making fun of our advancing age
@FlockOfCats The youth of today will never know how many hard boiled eggs it used to take to get the yolk *just right* to use in a mouse.
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Mastodon/Fedi: The social network for people who have actually cleaned mouse balls
️@FlockOfCats this made my day. Thanks for bringing back some memories.
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@FlockOfCats do tractor feed printers next
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@FlockOfCats My friend swallowed one.
@emil omg
were they a young child at the time or did they mistake it for an over boiled egg yolk?
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Mastodon/Fedi: The social network for people who have actually cleaned mouse balls
️@FlockOfCats
I remember:
1. writing a guide for my secondary school IT class on how to navigate a computer without a mouse, when the mouse was stolen
2. digital mice finally arriving but only being able to use them on a very small number of surfaces that could reflect the light back properly -
@M0PWX @Felila @FlockOfCats That rings a bell, but I can't for the life of me remember what "interleaving" was.
@RachelThornSub @Felila @FlockOfCats
the disk controller couldn't read / process data quick enough as it came off the disk, so it wrote every 2nd or 3rd sector, then filled in the gaps
you used to have to run special programs to work out the best interleave factor based on spindle speed, speed of the controller and encoding (MFM / RLL)
so much fun and performance tanked if you set it to 1:1 as it would read sector 1, miss the start of sector 2 and have to wait a full rotation for sector 2
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Mastodon/Fedi: The social network for people who have actually cleaned mouse balls
️@FlockOfCats I want my dirty mouse ball back!
(It was always dirty, never washed). -
Mastodon/Fedi: The social network for people who have actually cleaned mouse balls
️i'm being gatekept
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I was in the meeting when the head sysadmin for a large university dumped a box of mouse balls onto a conference room table.
"You turned down my request for optical mice.
You want to know why trouble tickets take so long and I can't get projects finished?
Here's why. Two hundred mouse balls replaced this quarter, thousands cleaned and serviced.
Every time one of my staff touches a mouse with a ball, it costs twice what a modern ball-less mouse would cost.
Every time you cut my capex, you pay twice that in opex."A truly epic scene.
He got his budget request.That guy had the balls to say what needed to be said.
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@wonka @Felila @FlockOfCats No, no, no DE-fragging! It's the opposite of fragging! But almost as soothing! Although it does require a *hard* disk. You can't defrag a floppy disk.
@wonka @FlockOfCats @RachelThornSub @Felila Fun fact: Apple Pascal (Apple II era) could only write a file to contiguous space, so you actually did have to defrag floppies sometimes.
