"chaz_heritage.WGC1RX"@XEROX.COM (02/22/88)
In his 13 Feb 88 13:47:33 GMT Brad Banko writes: > the mouse went on the fritz... i determined this by find the same problem with the mouse (the pointer didn't always move where you wanted it to... sometimes, it would just hole itself up in a corner of the screen and stay there) when i tried it on another machine. < I had my 520STFM for about a month when this happened, despite buying the mouse a mousemat to run on. I know what caused it. It was all those people coming to my place, commandeering the machine, and playing Star Wars on it. Anyway, being hardware-orientated, I couldn't face sending the mouse in for replacement unquestioned so I disembowelled the little so-and-so. There is a big ball in it which drives two dual rotary optical switches by means of little drive wheels. There is also a spring-loaded idler which keeps the big ball in place. Both of the drive wheels and the idler were encrusted kind of goo. This was made up apparently of carpet fluff, cat hair, and other less mentionable organic debris, I guess. So I took a toothpick and spent half an hour scraping off the goo - the carpet fluff etc. came out with a pair of surgical tweezers. I polished up all the little wheels with isopropanol and a Q-tip, amid hoots and jeers of derision from the frustrated Star Wars players, who were getting restless. On reassembly the mouse worked as new, and they took my computer away again and played the damn game until 0330. This was the standard Atari mouse. Compared to a Xerox optical mouse it is not very good, so I'm still working on improvements. Suggestion: if you try this for Pete's sake keep your Q-tip away from the optical gear since the cotton will get wound around the shutter shafts and in amongst the IR optoswitches. Don't use anything metallic on the wheels; toothpick (wood or plastic) is OK. Clean the big ball as per Atari instructions. I'll try to get one of the other sort of mice and disembowel that, too. I was thinking maybe one could build or modify mice; they're not apparently all that complicated. Anybody tried it? Regards, Chaz Disclaimer: I never told you to rip the guts out - I just commented on their colour.