Yeah, hated boiling the eggs every week or so.
this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2026
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Came to the comments to check for this.
Exactly why I opened the comments as well.
I do. When modern mouses stop working, I feel useless.
These worked on glass. Almost nothing today works on a glass table but these did
This comment made me curious so I tested the two mice I use regularly.
My Logitech G502 tracks very poorly on glass and is basically unusable.
My MX Anywhere 2S lives up to its name and seems to track perfectly fine.
I use a thumb-trackball (and have since the 90s). They work on glass. Hell, they work on my lap or beside me if I'm in bed. And no space needed to move around.
Every week or two I pop the ball out and give it a quick wipe with a lenscloth.
Preach the good word, partner
I love my thumb-trackball. Doesn't matter where I use it, it will always work.
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Those balls were usually steel ball bearings with a synthetic rubber wrapped around it. They gave the entire mouse some weight which made the mouse feel better to use. You could clean them with something like soap, but you'd have to be careful not to use anything that messed up the rubber. Some people cleaned them wrong, which caused the rubber to become more sticky and thus get dirty sooner. You'd also risk the rubber becoming harder and not sticky enough, so they would slip a lot. They were basically a pain in the ass and I'm happy we've moved on from that.
For me the extra resistance the mass gave against acceleration made it really good for playing first-person shooters.
Got it: be careful when rubbing the balls otherwise they’ll get too sticky or hard
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I loved breaking the little dust rolls wrapped around the direction shafts
Yeah man, it was so satisfying
For a long time I thought those were built-in special rolls.
Did anyone actually clean their mice like this?
Yeah, you kinda had to at a certain point, the gunk would inhibit the ball from rolling freely.
Id get in there with my child fingers and scratch the wad of gunk off. Usually id end up wedging it in the housing but thats my dad's problem.
I remember cleaning the ball once or twice, yes, when it got too bad to ignore.
Mostly the gunk accumulated on the rollers, though (and under the mouse, like in optical ones), and that was easier and faster to just scratch off with your nail... except for the little third wheel (seen on the bottom left picture) that kept the ball centered, of course, because that one wasn't only smaller but on a spring, making it almost impossible to scratch the gunk off of.
There was also the occasional hair tangled up on a roller, of course, which was almost impossible to remove. Those you just pushed aside onto the roller's axle and hoped the mouse would die of some electrical failure before the poor thing got too full of hair to roll.
There was always a kind of lint that would develop on the wheel inside. I've got no idea what it was made out of.
Usually just actual lint and dust. You'd have to kinda crack break it off then sprinkle it on the floor or blow it into the air on your friend sitting next to you.
Or make a secret ball collection and the school would panic.
Yes.
What? No velcro mouse ball to clean the wheels?
I removed the puppy grime sick with dust and dog hair from the rollers rather often.
I have this, for obvious reasons i can't link it but i have one.
My first job was IT Assistant at a manufacturing company. I spent at least 50% of my time cleaning mice.
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Never washed the ball. I did clean out the runners inside though. They hid away dead skin grime and pet fur better than any keyboard ever will.
Edit: I give my work keyboard a tip and tap once a week or so and have been asked why I do it. I explained it's basically a hygeine thing, explaining why, and was told it's disgusting. Encouraged colleagues to do it and they were mortified with the mess left on their desks. It was like they just dealt with the consequences of opening up their car engine after neglecting to oil change for 150,000 miles.
WHO'S DISGUSTING NOW????
They can try take the high road, but I've seen how many icons are on their desktops, so I basically know how messy their bedroom floor is.
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I use a trackball and clean mine every few days. It just takes a quick swipe of the rollers though no soap or anything crazy.
These balls were so satisfying to handle.
Mine are too
Nah, if I handle yours like an oldschool mouseball, you get all screamy. Really ruins the mood.
Scratch blow close 9/10. (With a personal mouse. Computer lab mice had clearly seen some things and needed the alcohol.)
You all are making me feel ancient.
Now let’s talk about losing the ball and having to fish it out from under the fridge.
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