The Holy Grail of Mousing
February 25th, 2004Sorry for the break in baby news, but I have to share something wonderful. Something marvelous.
In my utter geek Hall of Shame sits a pile of hardware/software that I have a strong affinity towards. This morning, on a complete whim, I grabbed one of the devices that was collecting dust in the basement (and which has been moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles to Utah) to see if there was any chance of saving it. I couldn’t be happier about what I have discovered.
For those who love to use trackballs as their primary pointing/mousing device, I have discovered that I can use the Kensington Turbo Mouse ADB, the best trackball ever made (their new ones don’t even come close in feel, quality and durability) with OS X. ADB, people! It’s not even native USB!
To connect this to my Dual G5, I had to use Griffin’s excellent iMate, and then downloaded the latest Kensington MouseWorks software. Imagine my elation when I saw this in my preference panel.
I can’t believe I can use this and it works wonderfully. The best thing is that you can assign buttons (I’m using it with my left hand) and the driver supports chording. Chording is where you click two buttons at once. I have the bottom two buttons set to scroll; vertically if I move the trackball up and down, horizontally if I move it side to side. Beats a scroll wheel any day.
I’m in ergonomics heaven. I wish it supported Expose directly, but for now, I’m able to use one of the best tools I ever had.
you’re a nerd. haha. congratulations on your baby!
i think nerds are just the cutest. besides, dooce has the baby news and all the absolutely adorable pictures i can stomach : )
oh man.
my wife is supposed to pick up her new ibook on friday and your post reminded me that I have one of the 2 adb to 1 usb dongles in my pile of old mac hardware.
if only the adb wacom tablet I have would work with os x.
I thought you’d enjoy this:
http://www.electric-chicken.co.uk/
Come to think of it, I used to have one of these great trackballs. After reading your entry, I’m left to think… hmmm…. where is it? But I think it entered the realm of missing-in-action computer accessories when I sold donated some of my old computers to charity before moving to Japan. Damn.
It’s the small things in life….
By the way, Leta looks *justlikeyou* in one of those photos over at Dooce. She is too cute!
That was the best trackball Kensington ever made. I totally agree that anything else doesn’t compare.
As soon as I can afford to buy an iMate, I’m going to try this on trackball that has started to collect dust. Thanks for the great post!
I am in awe. I can’t believe the gymnastics you poor MAC people have to go through.
Recently I bought some of the Kensington Super Turbo trackballs for our Radiologists to use on their read stations. They were plug-and-play in Windows 2000. Just plugged them in, and off we go. Also, they work in conjunction with the existing mouse — so you can use a pointing device in each hand, or switch devices for different uses.
BTW, graphics guys, these are stock machines, and each has 3 monitors — two 5 Mega-pixel grayscale portrait monitors, one 2 Mega-pixel landscape color. All that was also plug-and-play.
I’m sorry, but I just don’t get MACs.
Spoken like a true PC head. It’s not about latest and greatest. I can go to any megastore and buy any USB trackball and plug it in and it will work just fine on my Mac.
What you are missing; what you “don’t get” is that the trackball I rescued isn’t the latest and greatest. I don’t want the latest greatest, because the newer trackballs feel like shit. I use a pointing device 10 hours a day and I expect my tools to be well made, comfortable and durable. I saved my 1999 trackball because they don’t make them like they used to and I had hoped that one day I might be able to use it again.
It’s like driving a cherry 1969 GTO instead of a 2003 BMW. Both will get the job done, but there is a different feel to the GTO. I want the GTO equivalent of a trackball, and after 15 minutes of downloading and installing, I got it. That’s not crazy gymnastics. That’s freaking awesome. That’s also a level of product appreciation that most PC users don’t even want to think about. Which perhaps is our fun lesson for today about the difference between Mac people and PC people. Or maybe it’s just a fun lesson in the difference between anal freaks and those who don’t give a rats ass.
what i want to know is how brother chuck is adapting to sister leta!!!
dj blurb, so are you left handed or right handed? I use a trackball with my left, but am right handed and anyone who happens to sit at my computer is mystified. Congrats on your newfound happiness…both techwise and otherwise.