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My mouse climbed a wall and now it doesn't work right
- leeoniya 2y agoreminds me of how many users i've saved from headaches and eye strain by changing their CRT refresh rate from the default 60Hz to 75Hz in windows 98 or ME :)
- bombcar 2y agoOr setting LCDs to native resolution, adjusting DPI if necessary.
- w-ll 2y agosame with turing off motion interpolation on any tv i can
- parpfish 2y agoMy parents claim that they can’t tell when it’s on. But then again, they also enabled the setting that would stretch any letterboxed content to fill the whole screen…
- kjkjadksj 2y agoOur parents grew up watching a shoebox sized screen you could hear turn on from the yard outside. They can tolerate a lot of things that would send newer generations up a wall.
- parpfish 2y agotheir generation was also told that getting a “big screen TV” was a status symbol, so picture size (not quality) is the only/primary metric
- leeoniya 2y agooh, that thing that makes every movie look like a soap opera? yes, and generally calibrating them from in-store settings of everything turned up to 11
- dspillett 2y agoThough taking care to make sure the monitor was happy at that rate, or you'd make things worse. Sometimes if was a choice of 800x600@75 OK, 1024x768@60 OK, or 1024*768@75 with a constant high-pitch whine and occasional extra flicker.
- Wowfunhappy 2y ago> Instead, the problem was that the architect was unaware that it was possible to pick up a mouse and relocate it without the pointer moving from its current position. I am an elementary school teacher, and my students also don't realize this! It can be surprisingly difficult to explain to the younger ones. I sometimes have to put my hand over theirs on the mouse and demonstrate the motion.
- mcmoor 2y agoWe really took some things for granted. These things usually need to be taught from childhood to build intuition because no one would really be able to teach them all of these later, even themselves.
- userbinator 2y agoThat is very surprising, since I thought younger kids would be more likely to play around and figure out themselves that the mouse can't move the cursor unless it's flat against a surface.
- Wowfunhappy 2y agoI think some of them might recognize this (that the cursor only moves if the mouse is on a surface), but figuring out how to use it to recenter your mouse in space is a bit of a logic leap.
- kjkjadksj 2y agoYou’d think you’d learn that within one of the first times you used the mouse by accidentally doing it. Then again the OP is about a professional architect failing to realize this…
- perilunar 2y agoIf you've grown up using touchscreens (absolute position), then a mouse or a trackpad (relative velocity) could be a bit counterintuitive.
- dhosek 2y agoI remember in the late 80s being at the campus computer lab and telling someone to use the mouse to move the cursor, so she lifted the mouse up and pointed it where she wanted the cursor to go. Not quite Scotty in Star Trek IV, but awfully close.
- kevin_thibedeau 2y agoThis was necessary with the Sun optical mouse pads when they shifted at an angle. You'd have to lift and nudge the pad back to get it orthogonal again.
- wonger_ 2y agoMy grandma did the same in the 2000s. It was her first time seeing the family computer, and she picked up the mouse and placed it against the screen, trying to focus the login field for our Windows machine.
- Doxin 2y agoMy TV remote has a built in microphone. I feel like Scotty every single time I use that feature.
- userbinator 2y agoHe had moved the mouse further and further on his desk to the point at which it was ascending the wall behind it This makes me a little doubtful. He would've had to pick up the mouse to turn it 90 degrees to move it parallel to the wall, at which point he would've noticed the mouse would move without the pointer moving? In those days, many mouses came with, besides drivers, a somewhat game-like tutorial program that taught people the basics of how to use them.
- worthless-trash 2y agoHaving survived through this same era, I can assure you that shenanigans like this were the bread and butter of tech support.
- none_to_remain 2y agoI remember mid-90s it was typical for a home computer to come with a prominent tutorial on mouse usage. There was definitely one for MacOS 7, while I don't recall if there was an official Microsoft tutorial for 90s Windows or just ones provided by OEMs.
- speps 2y agoSolitaire was allegedly used to teach people about drag-and-drop with the mouse: > Microsoft intended Solitaire "to soothe people intimidated by the operating system," and at a time where many users were still unfamiliar with graphical user interfaces, it proved useful in familiarizing them with the use of a mouse, such as the drag-and-drop technique required for moving cards. From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Solitaire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Solitaire
- wolrah 2y ago> I remember mid-90s it was typical for a home computer to come with a prominent tutorial on mouse usage. There was definitely one for MacOS 7, while I don't recall if there was an official Microsoft tutorial for 90s Windows or just ones provided by OEMs. There was definitely one in Windows 3.1 as well, though I don't believe it made it to 95. I've often heard that Solitaire and Minesweeper were also intended to effectively be mouse tutorials where people learned by doing while playing the game.
- cam_l 2y agoIn the architects defence, the precursor to using a mouse for drafting was to use a digitizer. This had a fixed area which was the drafting area, plus a customisable arrangement of 'buttons' around it (usually in the form of a laminated sheet stick into the digitizer board) which was the interface. You could absolutely pick up the digitizer mouse and put it down into a different location on screen. It took me a bit of time to get used to drafting with a mouse after using a digitizer. It was so much less intuitive, so much less accurate, and didn't allow you to build muscle memory.
- danybittel 2y agoI remember my brother once (mid nineties) had a graphics tablet that came with a pen (corded of course) and a "mouse". But the mouse only worked on the tablet and had clear area with a crosshair. Is that the same thing? (Unfortunately I can't find a picture)
- diggernet 2y agoYou reminded me of the Kurta IS/One I had around that time. Here's a picture of the puck: https://www.recycledgoods.com/kurta-puck-puck-for-is-one-12x12-graphics-tablet/ https://www.recycledgoods.com/kurta-puck-puck-for-is-one-12x... And yes, that's the sort of thing they are talking about. (Edit: Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I'm beginning to recall that mine had a cordless puck. It looked exactly like this one, without the cord, and had silver-gray conductive paint down each side so that it would turn on when you grabbed it.)
- cam_l 2y agoThe one i used was something like this. https://cache.getlazarus.org/images/autocad.jpg https://cache.getlazarus.org/images/autocad.jpg
- jgalt78 2y agoThis reminds me of the case of the 500 mile email. https://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail.html https://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail.html
- garspin 2y agoHardest to diagnose phone support I had to deal with was an elderly relative in the DOS days trying to find another lost file.... "type in 'dir \documents' and press Enter. What comes up?". "Nothing". "Nothing at all?" "Nothing happens". After trying many variations of this, it eventually became apparent that he was pressing the Space Bar instead of the Enter key.
- Daub 2y agoI once had an elderly student in a similar situation. His solution was to lift the mouse, move the mouse mat up then move the mouse down again. It was painful to watch.
- pacoverdi 2y agoThis article made me conscious of my use of the mouse: I realize that I move it only with a ~3cm square, which allows to reach all corners of the screen by only moving my fingers, while the base of my palm stays "locked" to the desk. When using multiple screens, the mouse does some quick hops to reach them, but almost never leaves that square. This requires configuring the mouse to have sufficient "speed". I've never had any musculoskeletal disorder, probably thanks to making such small moves with my hand and staying relaxed.
- krige 2y agoI have found that my mouse usage also "evolved" to a similar efficiency. However this really requires a modern high DPI mouse, as I do intermittently use an ancient (1992) system with an equally ancient ball mouse, which can require a really massive "mileage" to do anything outside of native OS software.
- kjkjadksj 2y agoThere’s people who use the mouse like this even in pro gaming. Then again thats where you see the biggest spectrum of ergonomics. Some people set the sensitivity so low they throw the mouse with the entire arm. I’ve even seen someone set the keyboard on the shoulder and wrap their left hand onto WASD like they are carrying a 2x4 like that.
- bouke 2y agoThis is a great throwback reminder of all the dirty mice I’ve cleaned. Having all that lint unevenly stuck to the rollers made the tracking of the mouse uneven. I hated it so much my default behaviour when sitting down at a computer was to start with cleaning the mouse. That usually came with a puzzled look from the owner.