OT: New Trackball

I'm using one at the moment, an old PS2/USB version and it is still going although the little ball supports have failed and the ball rubs the sensor window but with a wipe out of accumulated finger crud every few months it's still going but I may start to search for a replacement before it fails. No idea on the driver it's what Ubuntu wants to use. If I can I'll get a similar one to replace it.

Don't you guys know the First Law of Hacking? Thou Shalt Not Type with Cheetos Fingers. Wipe 'n Type, folks.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

-Robert A. Heinlein

The M570 is tricky to get apart, compared to the earlier wired ones. We have to do that occasionally, because we have cats which like to generate lint to clog it all up.

Anyway -- there is one screw hidden under the label in the battery compartment, in addition so some visible from the bottom and some under the rubber anti-skid pads. Feel around with a small Phillips driver and you will find where the label gives a bit. Push and you will pop through the label and get to the hidden screw. Compressed air helps quite a bit, once it is open. If you need to remove the boards for soldering, you'll need an even smaller Philips driver.

You have to sometimes use tweezers to pull the lint out of the wheel in the middle mouse button. And sometimes the lint packs up around the various switch buttons to make them difficult to operate.

Hmm ... I've never used the Logitech driver. I've got mine connected to a Sun Blade 2000, and all the buttons work. (The two extra buttons, and the wheel, all work without special drivers, given what is built into the Solaris 10 OS.)

And I have *never* seen the phantom pulses. Could it possibly be vibration on the table with the ball moving just a little bit? To see whether that is the problem, reach through the hole in the bottom and pop out the ball. If it still has phantom pulses, it is a software problem.

Can you live without the special driver? If it otherwise behaves, live without the extra buttons.

Good Luck, DoN.

The M570 is a tolerable replacement for these Trackman trackballs which are no longer available. I adored those for a decade.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

-Robert A. Heinlein

On 9/4/2017 8:48 AM, rangerssuck wrote: ...

Jeez - I never heard of trackball mouse, I feel so retarded. Now I gotta try one. I see there are both thumb and index finger ones - is it just a matter of personal preference?

This one is 1/2 the price of the one linked above:

Thanks, Bob

If you have any problems with carpal tunnel pain, do not get a finger style. The thumb style prevents you from having to raise your hand at the wrist, preventing carpal nerve pressure.

The expensive one is built for gaming, with extra buttons.

I can't use a top-mounted trackball, so this is what I recommend:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

-Robert A. Heinlein

I greatly prefer the finger operated ball. It isn't only the index finger that can move the ball - with my trackball, three fingers naturally rest on the ball, and in my experience that gives much finer control than I can get with my thumb.

On 9/11/2017 6:00 PM, Larry Jaques wrote: ...

The one I linked has 8 buttons, but I guess that they're not "bendable", whatever that means.

I saw that & looked into it. I passed because it only has 5 buttons and I "need" 7: right, left, middle, back, delete, enter, & "Clipomatic". They get my fingers off the keyboard, which is unfriendly to them.

Thanks, Bob

On 9/11/2017 5:29 PM, Bob Engelhardt wrote: ...

One difference is right there in large print: the new, expensive, one is "extra large". Reading some reviews of the other one, it was often mentioned that it was too small for large hands (that's me).

Precisely. It's hell ordering a keyboard and getting a lousy one sent to you which you'd instantly walk away from in a store.

What program requires that you have 8 mouse keys, anyway?

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

-Robert A. Heinlein

I suspect so. I like the Logitch M570, which puts the ball under the thumb, has the fingers relaxing along the right and left "buttons", and between them has a scroll wheel which is also a middle button. There are also two other buttons to the left of the left button, which also do a scroll-up and scroll-down function like the scroll-wheel -- at least in my e-mail editor and browser in the Solaris-10 OS.

I don't know about the size of the Logitech one shown (not the one which I use), but the ball in the URL you have just above looks smaller than that in the Logitch M570 -- which might mean that you have more difficulty getting precise positioning.

Also -- the M570 has no mechanical contact with the ball -- it is purely optical sensors, so no wear. You do have to pop the ball out of its socket and clean fuzz/lint off from the three points which support the ball -- or at least you will if you have cats as we do. :-)

I have a tiny thumbwheel which fits like a ring on the index finger, and the ball motion is picked up by two rods which have a rubber like texture -- and which wore off the up/down axis rather quickly, so it no longer works except in the left-right axis. (It was cheap, and not very good even when it worked, so it does not matter much. :-)

So that could be the difference, in spite of your linked one having lots more buttons. (And I'm not sure what else I could do with those buttons on this OS. :-)

If you get one -- let us know how it works and for how long.

It looks like you grip it in your hand, and the fingers wrap around to the primary buttons. I'm not sure how comfortable that would be for a long session.

Enjoy, DoN.

On 9/12/2017 9:31 PM, DoN. Nichols wrote: ...

The 1/2-price one is normal sized and the OP's high priced one is huge. They list the dimensions, which nobody studies, and show pictures of it alone, but you need to see it in comparison (scroll down a bit):

The idea is that your whole hand rests on it. I have ordered one.

It's only high priced if you think in those terms. For me, I sometimes spen d as much as 16 hours a day at the computer - anything that makes that tim e easier is well worth any reasonable cost. I don't save pennies on human i nterface devices. It is, in my opinion, a false economy.