@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

@FlockOfCats nine times out of ten it wasn't the ball that was dirty, but the build up on the little wheels that transfered movement from the ball to the rotary encoders for the X and Y movement

spent many an hour taking mice apart in the workshop to clean all the little rollers and encoders to save the company a small fortune

we had a stack of mouse boxes in the corner to put the cleaned mice in to make users think they were getting a new one, then bring the box back, to reuse again

@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