News: 1589526913

""Whichever direction she moved it, the cursor would move opposite.""

Once I read this, I knew what was happening. It is actually pretty easy to have a mouse the wrong way.

Less with cabled ones, but still

It's easy to forget how we were introduced to mice - they just appeared on our desks one day without much in the way of explanation of how to use them. I once encountered a student using a lab machine with the mouse turned upside down - it worked in a way (mice still had balls back then); he'd never encountered a mouse before.

Mind you, as someone whose spacial awareness isn't so bad, you do have to wonder why they didn't try the mouse the other way up as one of the first things to try.

Idem. I actually knew a friend who lived a few hundred kilometers away who always complained on the phone about how mice were not that intuitive to use.

Cue the inevitable visit and demonstration of how to properly use a mouse.

We all had a good laugh about that over dinner.

As an owner of an Atari ST in the early 90s, I struggle to shake 'Ghost virus' as my first diagnosis of inverted mouse movement.

I've told a tale of [1]exactly the same problem , about a time I was teaching a basic computer intro courses for people who -mostly- never had used computers before

Hey, there's nothing wrong about not knowing something (at least if you learn from your errors)

[1] https://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/all/2018/12/14/on-call/#c_3678117

Going back about 15 years we got a laptop for my aged mother. We set it up for her, draped the phone lead from the phone socket in the hall, across the room to the table, connected the power from the kitchen to the eating area and got it working.

I didnt see her for a month, but when I phoned she said she had problems getting started, the lid would not open.

Next time I came to visit,I got her to show me the problem. The lid would not open, because she was trying to open the hinges. She had put the laptop down so the logo faced here (obviously). (The logo is to show everyone else - not for the user) .She knew she had to release the catches to open the lid, and the hinges had a sticky out bit.

Putting a label on the front "open here" was a big help for a while.

Remember - "Things are only obvious once you have seen it".

One of those dy branded jobs then?

Shall I tell you how often I place a laptop the wrong way round on a table? I doesn't happen with the wedge-shaped ones. But with the bricks it happens nearly more often than not, exactly because of the logo.

anon because of shame whatever, no one knows me here

"The logo is to show everyone else - not for the user"

I've had at least one laptop where the logo faced the user when the lid was closed. In fact I still find it mildly annoying that things changed. After all, it was me who paid for it, not someody across the room.

My mum was constantly complaining that after the grandchildren had been to visit her the TV never worked. They had an annoying habit of pulling out the cables at the back for some reason. So I would duly give advice over the phone and most times normal service would be resumed quite quickly. On one visit I brought some stickers and colour coded every cable and labelled every remote in a prominent place. Then it was just a case of matching the colours to the holes much as you'd see on a PC. Therefore if something isn't working obviously just look for an unplugged cable and connect the colours up. I took pictures of everything so that I could see exactly what she was looking at if there was a problem. That should have made it foolproof and the only calls I got were when she wanted to watch a DVD/"Blue Ray" etc. That required switching sources using the remote control and I eventually wrote a guide for doing that. All fine after that until I'm coming up by train one Friday night and I get a call.

The Tv turns on the satellite box turns on but it's saying there isn't a signal. I asked her to check and all the cables are connected and the are all except one. The pink cable is adrift and obviously the culprit so I ask her to put that back in. The pinky coloured cable however "Doesn't fit into the pinky coloured hole" and Gardeners World therefore isn't viewable. I checked the picture I had on my phone and said it's a screw on (F type) connector and it needs screwing back in to the pinky coloured connector on the satellite box. She's telling me that the cable doesn't screw in and yes she's trying pink to pink. After talking her through getting to BBC 2 via the somewhat unreliable DVB-T signal (hence the use of satellite) on the tv, I can thus relax until I get there.

When I arrived she picked me up in a much better better mood thanks to half an hour of Monty Don etc. I checked and the pink cable has come away from the crimped on connector which was still screwed into the back of the sat box. Puzzled I looked closer and found it was corroded both the cable and connector were corroded. They had therefore separated and weren't going to connect back up. I couldn't do anything about it that night but next day I looked at the LNB and everything there was fine. Self amalgamating tape was wound round everything and the connections were as watertight as possible. I followed the cable round the outside of the house to the TV room. I noticed that it now went round the newish conservatory but wasn't clipped to the wall as it had been. The builder who'd installed the conservatory had obviously been a bit cavalier with it. They'd accidentally made a small hole in the cable and had then routed it round through the guttering. This obviously had filled with water when it rained along with the cable, hole and all. The cable had slowly filled with moisture and thiis had made it down to the satellite box in the end. The drip loop was there but wouldn't protect against internal moisture.

I said a few small swear words and asked who the hell had built the conservatory. Subsequent investigations proved that the building firm had gone out of business and the bloke who ran it had moved to goodness knows where. All I can say is lucky for him.

We've all been [1]there , we'd be lying to say that we haven't.

[1] https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AZNV9I1nBF4/UB6SvKtIR6I/AAAAAAAAAWY/fk8_oWh9JCI/s1600/midvale+school+for+the+gifted.jpg

What's really infuriating is handles on the push side of a door, that's what push plates were invented for, and surely they must be cheaper!?

Push plates may be cheaper, but they're no use when the wind is stronger than the auto-closer.

While at uni I worked for Time computers, please feel free to flame me for my murky past. One old lady rang needing help with changing the display properties, for the life of me I can't remember why. So simple right click on empty part of desktop and select properties from menu was recommended. Lady says no menu is popping up. Knowing how these things go and after a few attempts I ask her exactly what she was doing. It turns out she was writing click with the mouse. Not the worst but the one that made me smile the most

"While at uni I worked for Time computers, please feel free to flame me for my murky past"

Not at all... All the while Time existed I could claim I was working at the second-worst PC manufacturer

Time may have been crap but let's not get silly here. At least they had enough dignity to close down :)

Oh Time computers, now there's a company I DO NOT miss.... I had a fairly expensive laptop from them - always grieved me that they wouldn't give you a proper windows CD - had to pay for the "recovery" CD, because they'd put some borked version of windows on (that I think prevented you from using non-approved drivers or something, which of course they never updated) and they'd messed with the disk partitions in such a way as to add a hidden recovery partition.

When I had to went to reinstall windows from a separately sourced windows CD - that'd corrupt the Master Boot Record somehow, and the only way to sort that was to use the recovery CD to "fix" the MBR. (but after that was able to at run my clean copy of windows). Of course I had to do several windows installs followed by MBR fixes with the recovery CD over the lifetime of that machine, cursing Time every time... glad they went bust!

I once saw a customer, a particularly elderly gentleman, who needed a new computer, and as part of the hardware I provided, he wanted a new mouse and keyboard. The big day came, I installed the new computer for him, along with its new keyboard and mouse. I noticed that he was using the mouse in an odd way, sort of prodding it and being rather amateur about the whole thing. Oh well, I thought, he's just getting used to it all.

The following week, I went round to check he was OK, and he said he loved the new computer, and that he'd got more or less got used to the mouse. I didn't quite know what he meant by 'getting used to it' - it was just a mouse after all. Then I realised. He still had his old computer there, and I pulled out the mouse. I asked him to show me how he used to use it. And he showed me. Mouse lead towards elbow, not towards computer. He's spent his whole computing life using a mouse the wrong way up, and had got so used to it, that it was second nature.

He told me he'd always wondered why he had trouble using his friend's computer. Now he knew.

Remember the Sun Microsystems optical mice, which had a reflective pad with a black and blue grid printed on it?

Rotating that grid pad by 90 degrees meant the mouse became very erratic.

Back in the day my Uni had a CAD/CAM room decked out Sun boxes with those optical mice. The room had something like 20 optical mouse workstations...and 19 mousemats.

Loughborough Elec Eng?

My first introduction to Unix was on one of those, but my uni had glued them to the desk. Thought it odd till I asked why.

Thanks for the reminder. I've spent the last 2+ decades trying to forget about them.

I think I've still got one of those mouse mats in the bottom of the drawer at work.

You could also print out a grid and use that … if you were lucky!

You've just given me flashbacks to my first proper CAD system (Daisy) that I bought in the 1980's which also had those optical mice. We had two seats, both running on 386's fitted with full length ISA memory cards and Matrox graphics. The worst thing was the network cable that was coiled up under the desk, vampire taps and all.

As I had more engineers than systems, people rotating the mouse mat was a constant source of japery. Good days. (Apart from Dave - he was a tosser!)

And so begins an early erpisode in the never-ending chronicle of providing support for your friends and families computers

I've had more than one call out for the mouse doing the opposite! If it wasn't for the Apple logo, more users would be in the same boat!

"Still, better than pitching up in person, glimpsing a browser history"

Sister in law. Midget porn collection.

My father-in-law had problems with his browser running very slowly. He never closed off or went back to any browser windows already opened, he always opened new ones... Maybe if he had closed a few (hundred) of his old ones, and didn't keep visiting sites where each page opened multiple new windows in the background, it might not have been so bad...

Let's just say I saw my father-in-law in a new light after closing off all that... :-( :-( :-(

Mice, the bane of techies lives! When we still had mice with balls the calls were never ending. Pulling hair, crumbs and general crud off of the rollers was routine. Cos the poor dears couldn't do it themselves. Some of these people replaced hips and heart valves, but cleaning mice balls, nah too hard. And when optical mice came along hundred of older mice got lost, fell off desks and exploded, lost their balls and, even had buttons pulled off.

Then there were the real oddballs. My mouse doesn't work...well if you hadn't cut the cable with a hole punch it probably would.

'I want a mouse with fish in it like Brenda's got'. And the promo mouse really did have fish in it, floating in a liquid inside a plastic bag on the back of the mouse. When it was pointed out the IT bods didn't keep them, she complained to our manager who then asked if we could find one! (variations included flashing LEDs, mice shaped like pills and, small mice for cluttered desks)

A request for a new mouse cos a medico took the orginal mouse from the office computer away with him to prevent cross infection. (Same lunatic who disassembled a live laser printer with forceps!)

The lady who brought her wireless mouse from home and complained it didn't work. Forgot the receiver dongle!

One of my early sins involved moving a local newspaper group's archive from a room filled with boxes and boxes of physical newspaper clippings to a web based digitzed library - and the journalists having to switch from shouting at the library staff to find them something to jumping on a shared PC and searching for things themselves.

Now most of these people were reasonably intelligent and had been using 'computers' for years...but those were dedicated publishing terminals with crazy keyboards covered in buttons to do anything and everything, not IBM PCs with their simple keyboards and new-fangled mice. Things started well, with most of the staff picking it up quickly and not reporting any issues, and then I get the call...

Them: "The mouse isn't working properly"

Me: "What's happening?"

Them: "I do my search but when I click on the link with the mouse thing sometimes it works, but usually it doesn't, and sometimes it opens a different link"

Now you don't have to support users for very long before you know that 90% of "That just doesn't make sense" issues aren't in either the hardware of software but in the pinkware. One quick trip downstairs and a "Can you show me the issue?" and I see them at work...

1. Gingerly move mouse, holding it between the tips of thumb and first finger, like you think it's a ive hand grenade till it's over the link.

2. Withdraw hand from mouse.

3. Index finger out.

4. Hammer down on the left mouse button from a height of 2ft, possibly with eyes closed.

Yes it did click the mouse button. It also tended to move it a random distance in a random direction on the desk and so the pointer on the screen.

Many years ago, my uncle explained his friend was having some issues with his brand new Atari ST and could we go around and take a look.

I got there and my uncle's friend was very proud to show off his new purchase, but explained that whatever he did, the mouse pointer just did not move... I flipped over the mouse, removed the piece of packing tape over the ball, and all was fine.

... I flipped over the mouse, removed the piece of packing tape over the ball, and all was fine.

Similar issue with Mother's new potato peeler.

"Why aren't you using the new peeler?"

"I bought the same type you have, but it doesn't work..."

..peeled clear plastic strip from blade and.....

I often wonder if the same issue exists for some people who purchase battery powered equipment (particularly remote controls) where the batteries are pre-installed but isolated with a clear plastic strip (and they don't read the instructions).

A wander round our office gives (gave? who knows whether the office is still there these days) a fascinating insight into the variety of pointer controllers. Many 'standard' mice, mostly now optical, some wired, some wireless. Some that are shaped like upright shells, some shaped like joysticks but still pushed around the desk surface, some that are joysticks and look almost identical to the previous ones, some trackpads, some 'nipple' controllers, and a couple of roller-bar mice beneath the keyboard. I've probably missed some other variants. I'd guess that around 40% of our office users have some sort of adaptation to their pointer controller over a standard mouse, though not in the dev team. I fully accept that there are a number of folks with RSI and restricted mobility issues that need some kind of help, but it definitely feels like there are a lot of folks who also need to be 'special'.

I suspect we have recently spent quite a bit on duplicating many of these devices so that folks can have one at home and one in the office for however the future work environment develops.

You forgot the trackball. My elderly mother couldn't get to grips with a mouse (literally) nor could she use the touchpad on her laptop. At the time I used an MEDC trackball on a CAD system, so borrowed that for a weekend and she took to it immediately. I seem to remember forking out loads of cash for a Microsoft version which she used for the rest of her days.

I purchased my own rodent and keyboard for use in the office, whereas most others are content with the cheap shite supplied with the base units. If I'm using something 7+ hours a day, I want to make sure I'm comfortable with it. 16 year old MS IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0A, still going strong. Keyboard is one using Cherry MX Red switches, as I'm not allowed to use my Model M in the office. Something about Health & Safety and exceeding dB limits...

Many moons ago in tech support I incurred the wrath of my colleagues for some unremembered reason, probably leaving my pager on my desk and going out on site. I returned to my desk to find my mouse nonfunctional, ball still there, check, plugged in to the PS/2 socket, check, scratch my head, well it's Win 95, reboot it. Still nothing, trot off to the store room to get a new mouse to test, bingo, it works perfectly!

Whilst pulling the cable for the old mouse out of the cable management on the back of my desk, the PS/2 plug is not moving, then, pop, the plug appears, but there's still a PS/2 mouse plug waving about near my PC? Bastards had hidden my mouse in the cable management, and simply dropped the cable of another mouse into the management tray. Cheers fellas.

Could have been one of the Apple hockey Puck mice that came with early iMacs. I still have no idea what possessed them to think it was a practical or comfortable design to use.

That said I recently re-acquired my iMac g3 (it was claimed parts along with others from a job where pay was not forthcoming at one point, got left in storage, given to a friend to convert to a cat carrier and now found its way back though without the original keyboard and mouse).

Lots of retro gaming to be had including a nice Marathon session and Doom on a proper CRT.

Gimp icon because you had to be one to use that sodding mouse.

We had a terrible IT manager, and amongst his general incompetencies, lack of interpersonal skills and chronic but poorly concealed alcoholism was the fact that he used his mouse the wrong way round, and always had.. buttons under the heel of his palm and everything. When asked, he gave the reason that he'd become used to trackballs in the past and this felt closer to the way they worked. So we offered to buy him a trackball of his choice, which he declined. I've long suspected that he didn't know how to use a mouse anyway. No great loss when he didn't come back into work one day.

"chronic but poorly concealed alcoholism" could also describe some of the best people I have worked for!

Have you worked for me then?

https://punch.photoshelter.com/image/I0000BaPhg4sVCD4

If I'm forced to use a mouse and not a trackball, I can ONLY use it 'upside down'. It's perfectly natural. (And that other great bit of Windows UI: Being unable to find out how to close it down. Silly me! You need the button marked Start.)

You use the ignition key to switch off the engine on most cars. And the power button to _remove_power from a device. And you don't even see the start button until the PC has already started.

Sorry, what was your problem again?

There's so much we can learn from kids. Years back, when the Mac Classic came out, we had one. One evening, we were enjoying a visit from some friends, who had a 6 year old lad. "Can I play on the computer?" Sure. He toddled off to the box room where the Mac was kept. After some time, I realised he'd have difficulty, from switching the thing on (the switch at the back, remember?) to generally working his way around, as this was his first experience of a Mac, and generally his parents didn't let him loose on their machine. Yet there he was, happily playing a game, or whatever he was doing. He simply needed nothing explained. OK, he was a bright kid, as the subsequent directions of his life shows, but still.

As the saying goes "The best is yet to come."

I had the task of putting together a procurement request for our very first office PC as one of our suppliers was now setting up an online ordering system. Our boss wanted to be in the forefront of this brave new world so muggins was summoned to the enclave and greeted with the comment "you've got one of these things at home we need one here, get it costed out" List duly drawn up I wondered back in to the enclave and the list was perused prior to approval. "what's this mouse thing?" (From memory the total cost was £2,000 and the mouse £15) You try and explain the function of a mouse to someone who has never seen one or seen anything other than a dumb terminal. I must have been convincing because the purchase was approved :-)

(The shenanigans of connecting the dial up modem using the internal phone system and shared lines etc. are a whole new story)