sjc@VAX3.ITI.ORG ("Steven J. Clark") (01/24/89)
I hope youknow that you can xerox those mouse pads! I never used the originals supplied by Xerox for my mouse; I would always copy them and use the copies. If I still had any I'd send you a couple copies right now. For a while I had copied two mouse pads onto a single 11 by 17 inch sheet of paper and had a very large mouse area, but it wore out (got dirty). -Steve
gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu (02/02/89)
I never understood why the xerox optical mice "shit on the pad".
If you look at a worn pad, there are wierd black spots, perhaps caused
by light from the mouse? Is it really true that the pads wear out
because the mouse goes to bathroom on them????
Don Gillies, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Illinois
1304 W. Springfield, Urbana, Ill 61801
ARPA: gillies@cs.uiuc.edu UUCP: {uunet,harvard}!uiucdcs!gilliesREEDER@kebc.icl.stc.co.UK ("Mark W. Reeder") (02/18/89)
[<sjc@org.iti.vax3>
I hope youknow that you can xerox those mouse pads! I never used the originals
supplied by Xerox for my mouse; I would always copy them and use the copies. ]
Before I downgraded to a Sun-mouse & U**X, and used X1186...
a) I made 6 * photo-copies of the original pad.
b) Locked up the original pad.
c) Inserted 1 copy under the handy plastic sheet that Xerox
supplied on the front cover of each InterLisp manual.
To me, this provided i) a slow-fade pad
ii) an ergonomically-preferable wrist angle
provided by the manual.
iii) Nothing glued to my (real) desktop
Why so many hybrid pad/manuals ?...
There's a clever feedback system through the mouse. This ensures
that the code being written/debugged requires reference to the manual
under the mouse (whenever possible whilst a button has to be held).
(ENVOS to exploit this?)
Problems:
Swapping OUT a manual/pad on needing to reference an ON_LINE page !
NIH - visitors take the pads out and mutilate them or lose them
when borrowing the workstation.
Having to look over your shoulder for persons in white coats.
I only pass this on because one person told me it was an excellent
idea (and he's still on the outside).
(& testing my route via trans-"pond" mail gateways)
Mark