mouse accel rate issue -- resolved

[Bruce Marshall]

On Wednesday 26 February 2003 7:52 am, dep wrote:
> begin  Bruce Marshall's  quote:
> | Oh well....  I think what's current in the Expert Mouse line is the
> | Pro now....  with four big buttons and 6 small ones on the top
> | edge... and a wheel above the ball.
>
> they still apparently have the plain old expert mouse:
> http://www.kensington.com/html/1175.html which is what i'm using. i
> want all four buttons to work (as it is, i have two left and two
> right) before i start adding more buttons! i don't suppose you know
> of anyone who has done up a way of assigning discrete functions to
> the buttons, do you?

Thanks for the tip...  Didn't know they were still selling the old model 
but at $109, I think I'll get them from eBay...  I haven't seen the 
'classic' model available from a vendor but I suppose they could be 
found.

Haven't looked yet for discrete functions but I would assume that with 
more and more mice coming with extra buttons, it will happen some day 
not too far away.

 they actually ported mouseworks to OS/2, and i
> was able to get some nice functioning out of it. though truth be
> known, having two left and two right is not bad, in that i can click
> no matter what my hand position, which reduces fatigue.
>

Yeh, I seem to recall using the EM under OS/2 also...  worked pretty well 
and had all of the mouse controls too.  Hmmm, think I'll go see if 
Kensington has a 'feedback' area on their site but I did notice that 
under 'System Requirements' on the page you listed, they don't include 
Linux, so I guess we're outlaws...

Just went to their page and at:

http://www.kensington.com/html/1512.html

there is a 'survey' you can take. At the end is a 'comment' section so I 
laid it on thick there for the need for Linux support.  If you can find 
the time, take the survey... it's about 5 questions long.

> the new cord they sent had a 9-pin serial to ps2 adapter, which i'm
> not using but which is nice to have. i've fiddled a little with the
> old one, and there is something goofy, which is to say intermittent,
> in the cord connector on the trackball itself. if i had a wiring
> diagram, i'd try either to fix the connector itself or to hardwire
> the cord, because the old one does work a lot more smoothly than the
> new one. the old one is considerably heavier, and looking inside i
> see it is far more nicely finished than the new one. i'd love to get
> the old one working. also, and this works for keyboards as well, i've
> found that getting some little peel-and-stick non-skid pads, half the
> size of a postage stamp, and putting 'em on the bottom makes things
> nicer, because i can place the trackball as if it were a rightward
> extension of the keyboard and it will stay there. this is useful in
> going through mail, because the delete key is within thumb's reach
> (well, if you have numlock off, or if you use one of these little
> shorty ibm keyboards).


Hmm  I'll try the non-skid pads...   Are you sure that the connector 
hasn't just come loose from the circuit board and loosened its 
connections?  Unless the connector itself is worn, I would think it 
would be a mechanical problem (loose solder joint) more than anything.  
I once threw out an old 2-button mouse because I was having a hard time 
getting it to be smooth after repeated cleanings..  wish I had kept it 
for the parts now but I am sure there may be a candidate coming along 
someday...  (I recently bought 5 of the things for $65 total on eBay and 
they were all in great condition) 


> | There should be a label on the bottom telling you what you have but
> | as long as it works, that's what counts.
>
> my old one was definitely a v5; the new one says "expert mouse usb/ps2
> four-button trackball model #64217." i don't know what the old one
> said because i had to peel off the label to take it apart for
> cleaning. (with the new one, i learned, and used an exacto knife to
> cut away the label over the two screws.)

Sounds like you have the new 'classic' model then.  I don't have one of 
those but I can't imagine it would be much different than a V5.  Oh... 
you said it didn't have a connector at all and neither does the Pro 
model.  So I would guess it may have the guts of a Pro in the old case.  

I haven't opened up a Pro model yet to see how it is constructed but that 
should happen soon.  I would hope they would either a) make it easier to 
clean, or b) design it so it doesn't need cleaning but I'm probably 
dreaming in both cases.

Check out eBay (search on Expert Mouse) if you really want one of the 
older models...  they have them new and/or old on there.


-- 

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ Bruce S. Marshall  bmarsh at bmarsh.com  Bellaire, MI         02/26/03 
10:10  +
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
"Programming Department:  Mistakes made while you wait."