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Or were old rollerball mice (where the ball was under the mouse) far better, in a way, than modern laser mice? I remember long ago I could set mouse acceleration and speed so the mouse was far more responsive and intuitive than modern laser mice, or at least the mice I have had. Small, short movements, resulted in small, precise screen movements, whereas larger movements resulted in larger screen movements, but slowing down quickly brought back precision.
I have been using Logitech almost exclusively throughout the years, and those old memories haunt me, reminding me of older, better times, when our world wasn't split along the divides it is now.
On the other hand, I remember having to clean them regularly...
Is my memory going bad? I would go back to those old mouse memories in spite of the cleaning problems, if it gave me back the precision I remember...
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By my (rather hazy) recollection, drivers in the ball mouse era allowed lots of tweaks of acceleration profiles and so on, which seem to now be buried in a "one size fits all" profile. Nowadays you seem to get a raw speed setting, and a double click time if you're lucky.
...and yes, cleaning was a regular PITA.
Cheers,
Peter
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
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most gaming mouse have custom DPI settings.
and also, windows has build-in "mouse acceleration" but not a fan of it, because it doesn't help the desktop experience much, but ruins gaming experience...
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I am not much of a gamer. I still use Logitech, but my current M510 has speed and acceleration settings built in (although not DPI settings), and it isn't nearly as nice to use as my old rollerball ones used to be...  (and :cry: ) (And, if I recall correctly, they also only had acceleration and speed settings. The 'momentum' must have been the additional factor???)
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It might just be that the build quality of Logitech mice has become worse.
I used to own a G5, first generation laser mouse, and it was perfect.
Then I broke it, and bought a second generation one, G500 rebrand.
The build quality was noticeably worse, but still OK.
Then it broke on me, and I bought a third generation one, G510 rebrand. This time. the wire was made from a very cheap material, it had swappable weights as a gimmick, and it practically disintegrated on it's own within 5 months.
After that, I noticed that SteelSeries did a cheap nock-off version of the G5, so I moved on to the Rival 300 and I've been using that one ever since. I recently looked into buying a second Rival 300 for the office, but they discontinued the entire line, in favor of more gimmicks, overall lower build quality.. at double the price. And their latest drivers have ads, and break macro support entirely.
To me, it seems like every peripheral company likes to release strong products initially, but will then cut costs aggressively for all subsequent generations. As a result, my next mouse will probably be a non-descript Chinese brand, that can present a compelling bill-of-materials and a friendly customer service by means of auto-translated responses.
It might read bad on paper, but at least China is giving me quality at an agreeable price point. Logitech nowadays is like buying sub-par quality and gimmicks at a premium price point, or garbage quality at an economic price point. Neither option compels me.
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I've had good luck with the Razer brand mice.
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Unfortunately, I'm a little guy and the Razer's are just too big for my hand. I tried one for awhile but I would, accidentally keep hitting one of the mouse buttons.
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For graphic editing (Photoshop etc) I use a gaming mouse where I can, at the tap of a button, make it's movements very sluggish for those fiddly bits.
Likewise when I need to drag mouse from screen 5 to screen 1, it is nice to have the mouse pointer travel at light speed.
Nothing succeeds like a budgie without teeth.
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Have you looked at changing the pointer speed? At least on Windows 10:
1. Start -> Mouse.
2. Additional mouse options.
3. Pointer options.
4. Motion.
5. Slide left/right as desired.
There's also a checkbox that says Enhance Pointer precision but I can't quite see what difference it makes.
Cheers,
Vikram.
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I prefer the laser but the switches don't last long before they double click. I assume it is contact bounce but don't see a way to fix.
>64
Some days the dragon wins. Suck it up.
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theoldfool wrote: I assume it is contact bounce but don't see a way to fix.
It's simply equipment made by the lowest bidder. The mouse button switches are rated (among other things) by the number of "clicks" they can perform. Reducing the number of clicks reduces the cost to the manufacturer.
You might be able to replace the switches by buying them on fleabay, but it's probably a losing proposition - a new mouse is probably cheaper.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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no.
they were bad.
CI/CD = Continuous Impediment/Continuous Despair
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Your memory is fine.
I remember discussions about cleaning mouse balls, with different interpretations of what that meant!😂😂😂
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Maybe you are thinking of that old mouse ball replacement memo at IBM?
Mouse ball replacement[^]
It was a real memo, but not one actually distributed to field service engineers (as the story claims that it was) - it was just an internal joke at IBM.
Another internal IBM joke (which I think is a good one!): The IBM 360 series (of the 1960s) used as a logo a full circle with one radius drawn (sort of like the on/off symbol used on some buttons). So when the 360 series was replaced by the 370 series, what sort of logo did they give it? A larger circle ...  They added a larger circle, around the 360 circle, touching at the bottom where the radius met the circle(s).
This double-circle logo was never used externally in marketing, though.
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Thanks. That memo or something similar I read somewhere. Somehow I thought the discussion was in Codeproject.
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Ah, the good old days. Sometimes they really were good.
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I agree with you - the precision was a lot better.
I also found it therapeutic to clean the mouse - if I was stuck thinking on a problem it was a great way to work on it in the background while cleaning.
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My problem with modern mice isn't ball vs laser, but cordless vs wired. I keep getting told I had just a bad one and I should try again, but every cordless mouse I ever tried had this problem where, because they're so aggressively trying to conserve battery power, they're constantly trying to go to sleep, so if I'm in the middle of trying to do some precision selection, it'll go to sleep mode and I have to give it a jerk to wake it up...but in doing that, the pointer is now at the other end of the screen.
Wired FTW. The same with network connections. I despise Wi-Fi.
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I gave up on cordless for this reason, too. Also, the batteries would die at the worst possible time when you're gaming. Wired for me thanks.
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agree.
I had a wireless mouse chewing batteries. Later I discovered I could remove/reinsert the battery, and it would work again for about the same amount of time. Probably firmware issues. But that left a bad taste. I use one ONLY when I travel. It's cleaner/easier to pack.
Also, I had a slanted keyboard tray for the mouse. And the Wired one falls Elegantly without hitting the ground. The wireless. It's like it's trying out for the Olympics Distance Bounce under the desk. LOL
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I love cordless mice!
Admittedly, they had a long way to go. My first one didn't reduce the cable clutter, though: It also took extra desktop space for the charging cradle that required a 230VAC cable for powering. Then there was one with two plain AA batteries - I don't remember anything about having to replace them too often, but I remember them always running out late at night, when I didn't have any fresh batteries available (or I couldn't find them). Then there was one that could be charged by USB; the cell was AA size but 1.2V, and a strong warning about never using any un-original battery. The battery died after a few years.
Then I bought my current one, a Logitech MX Master 3, which is definitely not a cheap mouse! But it is the very best mouse I ever had. It is sensitive, works on practically any surface, charges fast (via USB-C), and I use it full time ++ for at least two weeks between each charging. It does have an on-off switch, but I never turn it off. I never think of it as being asleep so it must be woken up - it responds immediately when I touch it.
It has the thumb buttons and wheel - when I have to use other mice (at other peoples' PCs), navigating back and forth between web pages is a pain, compared to simply hitting the back / forward thumb buttons. (Maybe it is even more a pain because every time I want go back, I first hit the (non-existing) back button with my thumb, nothing happens, I utter an adult word, and do it the cumbersome way. Also, when I need to enlarge something, with other mice I always rub the left edge for a little while before remembering that this other mouse has no thumb controlled zoom wheel.
I wouldn't trade my MX Master 3 for any other mouse, with the possible exception of a newer version of the same one.
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I used an old rollerball mouse a few weeks ago when my optical gave out. While the optical had no issues panning across 3 monitors, the rollerball required effectively "multiple mouse pads". No matter what I tried (acceleration, etc.), it seemed to think my desktops were only 15 inches when they were at least 27.
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
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Your memory is bad. Or rather, you're mixing up two things here, namely the quality of the sensor (which, for ball mice, is sh*t) and the tooling around it.
Optical mice are precise, ball mice aren't. Even without lint getting in the rollers (have fun pretending to prevent that), the mechanics ain't precise in the slightest.
But that's what not what you're talking about. You're talking about settings kicking in after reading the sensor, before the results get translated to cursor movements.
It seems, you're fond of mouse acceleration. I don't judge here, not everyone of us has to be a gamer. However, there's absolutely nothing preventing you from enabling mouse acceleration with a modern mouse. It's not the mouse that does this, it's the software! Windows got a mouse acceleration setting (albeit labeled somewhat awkwardly) right in the mouse control panel. So enable acceleration there and enjoy what you're used to with a modern mouse.
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A little assumptive, there, Member 9167057? Acceleration was enabled when I installed the mouse. I've played with it a few times since then, to see if any other setting worked better, but I've got it tuned as best it can be with the software settings available. But it isn't as nice as the old-style mice. ElectronProgrammer gave what is probably the real reason down below. My old ball mice were more precise than my newer laser mice, regardless of your beliefs.
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If I wanted to be assumptive, I'd go great lengths assuming use cases where mouse acceleration is more precise/better, than a 1:1 translation.
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