Lately, hardware around the house has been failing with great regularity. This should be expected, as there are nine systems around the house. Failure of components happens. Entropy is part of the universe.

The strange thing is that the product failure is not the older hardware. all the older stuff is chugging right along, with nary a beat missed. This goes against all that should be, as older things, being used more, should fail before those things that are newer. Simple. Logical.

Not happening.

Nowhere is this more evident than with the keyboards and mice used. The keyboards here range from Northgate Omnikey Ultras [2], to Compaq PS/2 keyboards [3], to some new Dells [5], and a Viewsonic that is a ripoff of the MS Officekey design. The Dells are the latest to arrive here, and are used only infrequently. A couple of these have keys that are already refusing to put the character codes on the wire to the keyboard port. They have never been abused, dropped, or had anything spilled on them, yet they are giving up the ghost!

The rodent situation is worse. Still in my possession are three Microsoft InPort mice, otherwise referred to as the ‘dove bar.’ They feel so good in the hand, have never given a moment’s trouble, except for the occasional crud that builds on the rubber covered lead ball. Once the ball is removed and cleaned each mouse is good for another few weeks of mousing pleasure. The trouble is, for those unaware, these use a card that sits in an ISA slot, and only one of the computers in the house has one of those. It also can only be set for IRQs 2, 3, 4, or 5. The machine having the ISA slot has those IRQs taken, with no possible way to move to another interrupt.

Since the end of the reign of the ‘dove bars,’ mice from several manufacturers have been used around here. Logitech, Compaq [with just enough difference to not be able to use the Logitech software for Windows XP], Kensington, and Microsoft mice have all been tried. The original Logitech serial mouse with three buttons, which came with software to have mouse ability in Lotus 1-2-3 version 2.01, still works, just not with any software from Logitech for XP. The several original Kensington Thinking Mice I have still work. Again, no current revision of the Kensington software recognizes the four buttons of the mouse, which has no scroll wheel. The several Microsoft original scrolling mice still work, but they are such a pain, because using a mouse with a ball that needs periodic cleaning is just so passe.

In the last year, I have settled on the Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 6000. I have gotten other wireless mice from MS, but these have the best tracking, and seem to fit my hand better than any other mouse since that trusty dove bar. Unfortunately, during this last year, five of these mice have failed, on two machines, either physically or cosmetically. I say cosmetically because the paint on the side of the mouse where my thumb and fingers ride most of the time starts to discolor and then wear off, leaving the side of the mouse with the same silvery color as the top. The problem is that the sides cannot be completely cleaned of the dull gray paint, designed to make gripping more normal. This tends to look really bad, as though the mouse has been in service for years on end. [Oh, I have original IBM buckling spring keyboards that look better!]

The other 6000s have either quit working completely [2], or had the right button stop working completely [1]. 

I also find it very odd that those original InPort mice from Microsoft, and the original Logitech three button, have lifetime warranties, which means that if I have problems in my lifetime with them, they are replaced free of charge. These are all approximately 18 years old, still working, and look great too. About five years ago, when I still had a machine using windows 98SE, and that had two ISA slots, I had one of the InPort mice fail. It was the InPort card and was replaced by Microsoft without any paperwork whatsoever.

The Microsoft Wireless Laser 6000s are failing at a miserable rate, and look terrible to boot.

This is progress?

Tags: microsoft, kensington, logitech, compaq, mice, laser mice, inport mice, northgate omnikey ultra