Weird mouse problem

[minator]

Hi,

I recently powered on my A1200, it's only been 10 years since I last used it...

Apart from monitor sync problems which should only expected, I had an odd problem with my mouse - it will only move left and right, not up and down.

I tried another mouse (from the Walker of all things!) but it's even more dead and always has been.

I know I can use the keyboard as a mouse but that's really annoying and if you press the wrong keys you end up deleting things you don't mean to, I deleted WBstartup, grrrrr.

Is this a common problem?  Anything I should be looking at?

[Karlos]

You might have a load of crap trapped in there blocking the vertical roller. Take the ball out and see if you can manually roll the vertical roller. If not, you probably need to give it a good clean.

In any event, it's always worthwhile opening them up from time to time and giving them a good clean inside. You might even have got some crap trapped in the little wheels that the rollers turn. These wheels have slots in them at regular intervals that let IR light from a LED pass through to a photodetector. The resulting train of pulses are what the internal circuitry use to measure movement.

I used to get a similar problem caused by direct sunlight hitting my mouse. It turns out the casing allowed enough light through to trigger the above photodetectors which for some unknown reason were not shielded from ambient light.

[ElPolloDiabl]

You have a Walker? Send a pic please.

[minator]

You might have a load of crap trapped in there blocking the vertical roller. Take the ball out and see if you can manually roll the vertical roller. If not, you probably need to give it a good clean.

That's the one thing I did do, and yes it was indeed full of gunk.

You have a Walker? Send a pic please.

I should really update this:

http://www.blachford.info/computer/walker/walker.html