[TheForge] Re: Ralph, Mike and their toys (Was: OT Threads ?)

[Mike Spencer]

Frosty quoth:

> I bought [an optical mouse] a couple years ago....Anyway, it has a
> bright red light, a sensor and doesn't much care what surface I use
> it on. I can hold it about 1/8" off a black surface and maybe 1/16"
> off a white surface and it works fine.

Okay, try this in your copious, winter-bound spare time:

Find some kind of shaft-type thing that turns kinda slow -- 40 to 120
RPM, say -- and that you can turn by hand too.  If it isn't black
already, paint it flat black, wrap it in matte black tape or the like.
Make a brilliant white paint or chalk spot or line on the black.  Hold
or clamp the mouse very steady over the white spot on the shaft, spin
the shaft and see what happens with your on-screen cursor.  Try
spinning the shaft really slowly by hand, say, by using a little ad
hoc baling wire crank.

Does the on-screen mouse cursor jig each time the mark comes around?
Or does it fly into a chaotic frenzy?  Do nothing?  Something else?


- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^