That’s the first thing that came to mind when I saw this. Those mice were a pain. I had to take the ball out from the socket and get rid of dust and debris so many times so it would work normally
It was so disgusting digging all the gunk out with a toothpick, cotton swabs, and alcohol.
Optical mice were such a huge improvement everyone I knew (except the weird trackball guy) switched as soon as they became available and never looked back.
First optical mouse I used was interning at a university engineering department in 1993. It had a special metal mousepad with a grid on it, and it worked pretty well as I recall.
TIL it was a Kirsch design, one of the first, from 1980.
That’s the first thing that came to mind when I saw this. Those mice were a pain. I had to take the ball out from the socket and get rid of dust and debris so many times so it would work normally
It was so disgusting digging all the gunk out with a toothpick, cotton swabs, and alcohol.
Optical mice were such a huge improvement everyone I knew (except the weird trackball guy) switched as soon as they became available and never looked back.
The first optical mice absolutely sucked compared to trackballs.
Fortunately, that period did not last long.
First optical mouse I used was interning at a university engineering department in 1993. It had a special metal mousepad with a grid on it, and it worked pretty well as I recall.
TIL it was a Kirsch design, one of the first, from 1980.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_mouse#/media/File:Old_optical_mouse.jpeg
Nice. I was referring to the consumer-level products that didn’t require a special pad, though.