Linux for Senior Citizens

Well, I see West Virginia's water supply has been tainted too. ;-)

> I.E., a trackball

Now that's an invention of the devil....

>> I.E., a trackball

> Now that's an invention of the devil....

I love them. I get RSI pretty quickly from regular mice. The best one's aren't sold anymore, sadly. They were made by logitech and they had a really big ball (about 8-9 cm diameter) that you could manipulate with all fingers.

E.g: http://members.arstechnica.com/x/cowboy/01.jpg or http://www.rumble.net/images/TrackmanMarbleFX.jpg

> The best one's aren't sold anymore, sadly. They were made by logitech and they had a really big ball (about 8-9 cm diameter)

You mean like this one:

http://www.staples.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StaplesProd...

Staples still had them the last time I was there.

Maybe. I haven't used those new Marbles. The ball looks smaller than the old Marble FX's that I posted. Those were huge and are a joy to handle.

Nowadays I usually use a trackman: http://www.frolundadata.se/prod_imgs/TrackballLogitechCordle...

I do have a regular mouse but I only ever use it for precision handling such as 3D shooters and per-pixel image editing.

The only trackball ever made that worked was the origional Logitech trackman fx. http://csown.dhs.org/trackmanmarblefx.html . All others are junk.

Of course they've discontinued the design.

jimf: That's the one I love and linked above as well :-)

> The ball looks smaller than the old Marble FX's that I posted.

Possibly. The ball on the Marble Mouse appears to only be about 4 cm. in diameter. It's also centrally located between the four buttons, which is not the same as the one you linked to.

Oh, and it's the track ball I use, of course.

Wow, are these colectors items, or what!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00000JBUI/ref=dp_olp...

These two are a little more realistic.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Logitech-Trackman-FX-MINT-NO-RESERVE-Tra...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Logitech-Trackman-Marble-FX-BRAND-NEW-IN...

I used to prefer the Kensingtons.

http://us.kensington.com/html/4771.html http://us.kensington.com/html/2200.html

> the Kensingtons.

It's the flat design (with any of them) that kills me. Poor control and very uncomfortable.

We have an older version of the Kensington Expert Mouse somewhere around the house. Meredith prefers the Logitech Trackman, so it's been relegated to emergency duty.

The best input device I've ever used was a trackball designed for a laptop. It was a brick a little less than 2" square that fit perfectly in the area made by crooking my forefinger at a right angle. The ball couldn't have been more than a 1/2" in diameter and the buttons were only maybe 1/2 an inch from the ball so everything was controlled by just the tip of my thumb.

It had a nice long cable with a PS/2 connector at the end (this was about 1995 or so) so I could just sit back in my chair and not get my hands anywhere near the desk. It was great for presentations too.

I never saw another one after that one. When it died, it took a little piece of me with it.

All you old gits out there that miss the trackball should try this on for size: http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;361485560;fp;16...

O.k., now I think I'm starting to feel like an old git.

Darren: That's a bit too far off for me. But a StarTrek-like computer that I can talk to in order to run my house would be great. "Computer: dim lights and play the love song playlist off my server". That would be great :-)

> try this on for size:

Don't worry, sooner or later, they'll plant a chip in your head so you won't need a mouse or trackball at all. Problem is, soon after that the powers that be (probably MS) will flip a switch, and, you'll become the rodent.

Don'cha just love progress :D

@sander,

You're thinking about something along the lines of this: http://www.x10.com/products/x10_ck11a_ci.htm

combined with this: http://cmusphinx.sourceforge.net/sphinx4/demo/jsapi/dialog/R...

@Darren

A friend of mine actually did that with his whole house. Really cool.

SFN:

Were you thinking of something like this: http://www.cyberguys.com/templates/searchdetail.asp?productI...