im kat,

girl-faggot ★ trans gremlin ★ aspiring internet witch ★ enjoyer of characters with horns/fangs/lots of piercings

 


 

pfp from lone


wobblegong
@wobblegong

I decided years ago that since the conventional computer peripheral is called a mouse, trackballs are rats.


wobblegong
@wobblegong

I also decided years ago that rats are where it's at and that's all I'll use. A mediocre rat still has tons of advantages over mice, because mousepads are a scam by Big Computer Desk and I spent my formative years suffering technology that didn't work. If the surface is subtly wrong a mouse no longer honors your movements; a rat has no such problems and can be stopped only by debris falling into the optical sensors, which is as obvious as it is easy to troubleshoot/clean!

I'm not gonna say I'm objectively right or anything– I like there being options so people can pick what meets their needs! But I am a fan of the rat. I love the rat. I honor the rat.


multioculate
@multioculate
🐀
this user has built 2 M570 rats out of 4 broken M570 rats but mostly uses an elecom g-pro (gamer rat) these days

akhra
@akhra

(it was called the Turbo Mouse back then, mechanical, two buttons and no ring; I fell in love with it playing Descent at a gaming café and never looked back)


wobblegong
@wobblegong

...uncertain how I feel to report this is the exact trackball I'm using right now.

Slightly mollified to hear someone else went "this is my gayming cursor-wriggler of choice" and has enjoyed it since, at least. While I enjoy tormenting unwary strangers with "I play games with an office trackball!" it does in fact do that job just fine– at most I miss out on the extra buttons a gaming-oriented mouse would have, and I'd be missing out on those anyways if I was using a regular mouse.


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in reply to @wobblegong's post:

in reply to @wobblegong's post:

50% of the reason I use a trackball rat, is because I often have cats laying on my arm, and it's hard to use a mouse like that.

The other 50% is because I like to use the computer while laying down, and it's hard to use a mouse like that

I've got a logi m575 thumb-ball rat I use with my laptop on the couch in the living room as a more-ergonomic alternative to the (also very nice) trackpad the thing has. It's hard to use a mouse on a sofa! Won't move smoothly on the upholstery!

in reply to @akhra's post:

There's a bit of specific history here:

It used to be that Turbo Mouse was Kensington's trackball for Apple computers (even pre-Macintosh: the first Turbo Mouse trackballs were for the Apple II). Once ADB got established, Turbo Mouse models were ADB.

Expert Mouse was the line for IBM-compatible PCs. Dunno whether there were serial models, but certainly once PS/2 ports got established, Expert Mouse models were PS/2.

They have had other trackball models, including the Orbit, but the Turbo/Expert Mouse were the ones that were complete twins of each other except for the connection to the computer.

Then USB happened and that distinction went poof. The Expert Mouse with the scroll ring has been the Turbo/Expert Mouse model for both Macs and PCs ever since.

I figured that was the eventual distinction but I could swear my first one was a Turbo Mouse on PC, way back in the two-button days. I remember it looking like the Mac model (which I had also encountered at a job), with that light gray they were doing for a while after everyone got tired of beige.

in reply to @wobblegong's post:

I've actually had people suggest I should change my pvp gaming name to TrackballUser or such so opponents feel worse when I beat them. Which mostly led me to not game with those people anymore because wow what kind of asshole has motivations like that, but yeah it really works for FPS control!

I've been ruminating on this comment for 16 hours and I think my verdict is that I'm confused by the prerequisite assumption that trackballs are a handicap. I didn't have many opinions on this before, but especially after this post chain moderately exploded as gaymer after gaymer chimed in to credit trackballs as their secret sauce to being good at vidya gamez, I'm unsure what's up with the gulf between "people absolutely slaying with trackballs" and "people who think trackballs are bad peripherals". Sort of interesting to contemplate...

But furthermore, I know the tolerance for bad manners is high in some genres but I hope you've enjoyed playing with other, less douchey people!

I didn't actually get it at the time either, especially because they were at that very moment watching me pop helmets with one, but in hindsight I'm pretty sure they were envisioning a smaller, index-finger-only trackball. They were pretty common for a while and I've used one and yeah, there's far less room to have both speed and precision, and lateral movement in particular is a bit awkward. (Never used a thumb ball but I imagine they're better, it's a more agile digit.)