What's the worst input device you've ever used?

[Sintpinty]

Mines is the HP optical mouse or the Apple Magic mice that they use in the stores. Inaccurate, have low/too high dpi, and are just not comfortable to hold for my small hands.
Here are some pictures of them:

What's yours? Looking for some other opinions on what the worst mice in existence for you is. What made it so horrible?

Thanks,
 Bitba_t

[Findecanor]

MacOS X, or actually Darwin has (or at least had) a weird mouse acceleration curve by default that makes mousing feel weird. Many mouse manufacturers have their own drivers for Mac just to get around it.

Oh, yeah. Apple's "puck mouse" for the first iMac deserves to be mentioned.  You never knew which direction it pointed. There were several third-party plastic shells for it to make it elongated.

[noisyturtle]

I have very clear memories of The Sega Activator ruining my holidays one year.

Also the Spacetech Spaceorb I got from a Comp USA clearance bin. What a piece of ****.

[Leslieann]

Apple Puck and original Magic Mouse.
Both were designed with looks, and looks alone. There has also been some weird themed mice that were pretty bad as well but they were not common like the Apple mice were.

I have a theory that Apple hates mice, so they assign the lowest ranked engineer, a bean counter and a few (fresh out of school) artists to design them.  The artists have free reign so long as it's cheap and the engineer is only there to make what they come up with functional, and only enough to be labeled a mouse.

Come to think  of it, this could explain quite a few Apple products (trashcan anyone?).

[tp4tissue]

When there are lots of competitors that make technologically matured products which do the SAME THING, the only way to stand out is with some Schtick..  And typically, it's visual.

A car that looks better than other cars.. (everyone goes 60mph on the road)
A computer that looks better than other computers.. (everyone plays LeagueoLeggie)

A mouse that stand out from other mouse.. (everyone click dat cookie clicker)
A vodka in a nicer bottle than other vodka.. (all massproduced, all get u drunk)

[Leslieann]

A car that looks better than other cars.. (everyone goes 60mph on the road)

60mph?
Only in traffic!

[xtrafrood]

Ball mice in general when paired with a dirty mousepad that I was not allowed to replace or clean (skool).. Yikes.

[Sintpinty]

Ball mice in general when paired with a dirty mousepad that I was not allowed to replace or clean (skool).. Yikes.

Funny thing is, my school wasn't able to afford mousepads. We had to use it on a scratchy, and uncomoftable surface. Even worse, the mouse was extremely heavy, and was not comfortable to use. At my high school, we have a solid budget, however it is not spent much on computers. Most of the ones are donated by the old schools simply because they have replaced them, or have no use for them anymore. I have never used a mousepad with my devices, ever.

[xtrafrood]

Ball mice in general when paired with a dirty mousepad that I was not allowed to replace or clean (skool).. Yikes.

Funny thing is, my school wasn't able to afford mousepads. We had to use it on a scratchy, and uncomoftable surface. Even worse, the mouse was extremely heavy, and was not comfortable to use. At my high school, we have a solid budget, however it is not spent much on computers. Most of the ones are donated by the old schools simply because they have replaced them, or have no use for them anymore. I have never used a mousepad with my devices, ever.

At least you had the option to wipe the non-mousepad like surface off with something (like a t-shirt or sweater sleeve) to prevent the ball mouse slippage commonly caused by hand oils. I couldn't exactly just mop up the grease from the mousepads. I vented my frustration via a little pen graffiti of course. Teachers were probably just glad I wasn't carving up the desks with sharp objects. Say want you want but those ball mice in a round about way affected several brutalist concrete walls to be painted when I reached high school/college age.

[Sintpinty]

Nope. We have uniforms. They must be kept clean according to our school’s dress code.

[xtrafrood]

Oh wow, you're still in school. I can't even imagine what modern schools are equipped with these days. I won't even pretend to say something like, "get a chamois cloth."

Pepperidge Farm was prattling on about my savage before public school uniform in Florida days of ball mice and buckling spring keyboards and meanwhile you're still living the school life.

Sometimes I forget that GH is composed of people of all age groups. Mea culpa.

[Sintpinty]

High school, now.