Blow the fluff from my crack, tickle my balls and other mouse-cleaning tips

Doug Engelbart’s fnar, fnar legacy

Photo © 2024 Nick Fewings | https://unsplash.com/fr/@jannerboy62

“Give yourself a little blow job every morning and your working day will be a happier one!”

These were the unabashed directions given to me during my first professional computing training course.

The trainer was full of these saucy one-liners. Another of her favourites – for my trainer was a she – was: “If fluff gets down your crack, try tickling your balls!” Intriguing advice indeed.

She was, of course, teaching me how to remove dust from the workings of an old computer mouse. Yes, a mechanical mouse! One of those things! Talk about out-of-style!

For younger readers: most computer mice used to have mechanical workings, containing a rubber-coated ball that rolled as you moved it around your tabletop, its various rotations detected by little wheels. Naturally it picked up dust and hair as it rolled along. Worse, the balls would need a regular wipe-down to remove revolting sticky dirt. Or, as we used to say, “ball-cheese”.

For even younger readers: a mouse was a hardware input device separate from the computer – but attached to it by a cable – that you used with one hand for moving a cursor around a computer screen and selecting icons, clicking on buttons and so on.

For even even younger readers: a cursor was a moveable on-screen positional target, often in the shape of an arrow, that was required in the days before you could point, select and move on-screen objects using capacitive touchscreens.

For even even even younger readers: pointing, selecting and moving on-screen objects is what we did ourselves before genAI. I know it sounds nuts but there you go.