770
I don't miss it
(thelemmy.club)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2026
770 points (99.1% liked)
Antique Memes Roadshow
8999 readers
850 users here now
Giving you the backstory and appraisals of vintage memes!
Submissions should be vintage memes or commentary about vintage memes. Commenters are advised to appraise the internet value and provenance meme antiquities.
Rules:
- Posts should be old memes or about old memes.
- Don’t be a jerk. Be excellent to each other.
- Keep it safe for work.
- Follow global .world instance rules outlined here
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
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.
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.
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.
Yes.