Kensington Slimblade Trackball - Possible Sol'n for Upper 2 Buttons

[TLL]

Hello all,
I've been following the trackball discussions in this forum for a bit now, as I'm looking to get a new one relatively soon (right now I'm managing with the old mechanical orbit... a bit of beast if I may say so).
One of the models I'm looking at is the Slimblade - but obviously the top buttons as preprogrammed is a problem since I use opensource stuff almost exclusively, though I'm stuck in xp half the time...

I may have found a solution in my browsing here (apparently some other versions are available if you search for SBT4Button or the like in google):

http://slimbladetrackball.web.fc2.com/SBT4ButtonPatch100.zip

...though apparently its Japanese, I found a short translation of some of the commands...

左上ボタン means upper left button.
右上ボタン means upper left button.
書き換え=over write
キャンセル=Cancel


If someone would be kind enough to test this for me, I would be most appreciative...

Thanks so much,
Tim

[Davaris]

I was considering the Slimblade, but I noticed they are angled upwards and I figure that would give me wrist pain.

[ch_123]

Even if you got the upper two buttons working, what about the scrolling functionality? I think this is where the older model would be better.

[e306]

got the trackball today and the PATCH WORKS PERFECTLY!


be sure to download the 1.00 driver version and NOT 1.03!



unfortunately the software is in japanese and you have to guess, which mousebutton you are mapping to the slimline-buttons

the second entry in the list is middle_mousebutton
X1 = xbutton1
X2 = xbutton2

dont know what the other words mean but you can try.

if anyone has question - feel free to send me an email.


PS:
the scrolling function is SOOOOO much better than the scratching scrollwheel on the expert mouse (i own both).
i really prefer the slimblade over the expert mouse!

[bigpook]

I have the older expert mouse with the scroll wheel and it works fine for me. But the slimblade is interesting. Glad to see you got the top buttons to work.
So you are liking the scrolling. I thought it would feel odd to twist the ball to scroll, but have yet to try it. Can you elaborate a bit more on the scrolling?
Do you have fine control?
Is the hand/finger position awkward/comfortable?

[bigpook]

I couldn't resist so I ordered the slimblade. I got it today and it pretty much works out of the  box.  All four buttons work and the scrolling ball thing seems to work fine.

[bigpook]

I use my thumb and middle finger to twist the ball. It works well. I don't get the "throw" like I do on the expert mouse ( you have to remove the magnet to get the scroll wheel to spin).
I am googling for how to change the scroll wheel speed in linux. Right now it scrolls 3-5 lines per twist.

[bigpook]

so far I can change the scroll wheel speed in firefox. go to about:config and make this change
mousewheel.withnokey.sysnumlines;false (default is true, making it false tells firefox to ignore the system setting)
mousewheel.withnokey.numlines;15 ( default is 1, I made mine a 15. much better now)

as for the rest of the apps, the default is fine. I spend most of my time in the browser anyways.

[microsoft windows]

I've always noticed the scroll wheels on newer Microsoft mice to default to being less sensitive than others. Anyone else notice this?

[ricercar]

I couldn't resist so I ordered the slimblade

Is it worth $100? I love the looks, but I'm sort of like Microsoft Windows; I have never paid over $5 for a trackball.

[bigpook]

of course not. a hundred dollars for a trackball is beyond the pale.
so is what we pay for filco's, hhkb's and topre's.
if you can get a trackball for 5 dollars, and it works for you then there is no need to really even consider anything in the kensington lineup, or logitech for that matter.

btw, just where are you getting trackball mice for five dollars?

[microsoft windows]

Is it worth $100? I love the looks, but I'm sort of like Microsoft Windows; I have never paid over $5 for a trackball.

Show Image

I actually bought a trackball for a dollar on ebay, but with the shipping, it went up to $8!

[bigpook]

did the trackball come with the mouse, or was that extra? : )

[ricercar]

btw, just where are you getting trackball mice for five dollars?

Flea market. Last time I picked up two Logitechs, a Trackman Marble FX and a Cordless Trackman FX (and a Goldtouch ergo keyboard) for $5 each.

[bigpook]

man, those are the flea markets I want to go to. great finds. especially for the logitech FX.

[microsoft windows]

Maybe I'll go there someday and expand my computer lab.

[ricercar]

Plenty of obsol-- Plenty of legacy equipment to enthrall even one as particular to you, 'Windows. I picked up four 1999-era palmtop computers in August for $10 each. One even says "Made for Windows 2000."

I almost picked up a $5 Furby with my trackballs, but my son had his eye on a toy and I had only a $20. I still have the parallel port interface sw/schematic for reprogramming Furbies when they go mad and need to be recovered. Sensory deprivation, angry talk, lots of ways....

[microsoft windows]

How good were the palmtops?

[ricercar]

How good were the palmtops?

They were immensely satisfying overall.

• Hitachi Traveller 3000 works with Win2K (upgraded in place from Win98) and a Lucent wifi card.  It's got dual batteries and delivers about 6 hours of life between recharges. With a Pentium I 75 overclocked to 150 MHz, it's still struggling with Flash video. I need to install a larger than 800MB drive to be more than a surfing machine. I'm thinking about a 4G compact flash. I really wish this one was smaller than a hardcover book.
  
  
• Toshiba Libretto 50CT works with Win95 and IE5.5 (haven't tried a Win2K upgrade yet). It's got a dock with a cardbus slot (ethernet) and one cardbus internal (Lucent WiFi) but win95 wifi software is dismal--it's nearly bad enough that I have to use regedit to enter SSID and WEP password. There's absolutely no 'Stumbler software I've found that actually offers the SSIDs of available unknown access points. This is a heft machine for its size (not as wide as a paperback book, but deep and tall as one). My wife wants this one for her portable medical refereces if she doesn't get an iPod Touch ffrom Santa this year.
  
  
• VADEM Clio 1000 is a Windows CE 2.1 tablet PC with 16 MB RAM and a boot time of under 1 second. I carry this 1998 vintage machine to my meetings at work, because (1) the handwriting recognition is better (2) it starts up faster (2) the battery lasts 4x the duration of my 2007 vintage Windows 7 UMPC tablet.
  
  
• Engineering seed Apple Powerbook M2 booted for a week, but now offers only the startup chimes. It must have known that I bought a $15 ethernet+video upgrade card for it, because it died the night I won the auction. The *****.
  

The powerbook has an 800x600 display, the others all have 640x480. IT's amazing what you can get done in 640 when motivated. I have a pair of Fujitsu tablets from 1997 with Windows CE and 640x480 and they rock as a daily carry PDA. WinCE in Flash RAM boots faster than any laptop, faster than my Treos.

[microsoft windows]

I have an old "H/PC", a handheld laptop of a sort running Windows CE 3.0 at half-VGA resolution. Haven't gotten it working with wireless yet though.

[ricercar]

The older wireless-B PCMCIA cards from Lucent/Orinocc/Agere have WinCE 3 drivers for download at HPCFactor.com. There's a sysop fellow who has been selling the hardware  (the pcmcia card) for $15 each for years in a thread in their classifieds. He must have had dozens--i was ready to buy 4 at one time, but then I came back to this board and started spending on keyboards instead.

[iMav]

I have the Slimblade and like it a lot more then I thought I would.  Initially, I had some soreness in my right wrist...but after a week of use, that went away.  I use it exclusively with my "Filco mini" on my primary personal computer (13.3" MBP).  It's a bit irritating not having a middle click...but since I use it exclusively with OS X, that's not that big of a deal.

[microsoft windows]

How well does the slimblade perform? Do you have to clean out the tracking ball a lot?

[bigpook]

I have only been using it for a few days but I can almost say it is a worthy replacement to the existing kensington expert.  I find the button placement to be almost the same though the buttons on the slimblade seem to take a little less force to activate.
I can scroll with just my thumb now, just like I did on the expert.

I haven't really had to clean the expert, aside from lifting the ball out of the socket and giving it a shot of canned air on occasion. While my desk is a mess I typically have clean hands when I use the mouse and keyboard. Not eating ribs or cheetos while at the computer helps too.

[In Stereo!]

http://reviews.cnet.com/trackballs/kensington-slimblade-trackball-trackball/4505-3150_7-33520088.html?tag=mncolBtm;rnav

OMG, what a piece of crap review.

Comfortable for those physically unable to use a standard mouse

OH WOW

And yeah, I was thinking of getting one. But now I see that is targeted more at Mac users and it supposedly does work well only with some applications. + is a somehow expensive first trackball

[HaaTa]

Been using it for a month between Windows 7, WinXP, and Linux it works great! Didn't even have a problem with it during a few FPS sessions.

You just need to grab the hacked drivers for windows. I need my middle click.

[In Stereo!]

Noted.

[Ranma13]

http://reviews.cnet.com/trackballs/kensington-slimblade-trackball-trackball/4505-3150_7-33520088.html?tag=mncolBtm;rnav

OMG, what a piece of crap review.

This is why I don't read C|Net reviews. Large footprint? No Bluetooth? This is a TRACKBALL we're talking about. That's like saying a regular mouse, compared to a finger mouse, is too large and not portable. They're comparing apples to oranges.

[dougy]

It's a bit irritating not having a middle click...but since I use it exclusively with OS X, that's not that big of a deal.

USB Overdrive now supports the Slimblade. I use the upper left button as the middle button, but there are lots of options.

[HaaTa]

USB Overdrive now supports the Slimblade. I use the upper left button as the middle button, but there are lots of options.

Ooo

[spire]

Does anyone still have their download of: http://slimbladetrackball.web.fc2.com/SBT4ButtonPatch100.zip

The link is dead and not being on a Mac, I can't take advantage of the awesomeness that is USB Overdrive ... thus, the legendary SBT4ButtonPatch is my only hope.

Much thanks to anyone who can help!

UPDATE: I found an alternate link here: http://web-karakuri.com/wp-content/uploads/SBT4ButtonPatch100.zip -- the instructions are here: http://geekhack.org/showpost.php?p=142803&postcount=17