comment on touchpad problems

[Mikus Grinbergs]

G1G1, Joyride 1971.  Was visiting a friend.  Apparently, he keeps 
his house less humid than mine.  Noticed that when I waved my hand 
in the air some two inches above the touchpad, the cursor (e.g., in 
Terminal) would move around uncontrollably, and even jump.

In fact, I had difficulty controlling cursor movement when using a 
finger on the touchpad.  The cursor would move, but would typically 
be only halfway across the screen by the time my finger had reached 
the touchpad edge.  When I would lift the finger (to reposition it 
for a repeat movement), the cursor would  jump backward or sideways. 
(Also, sometimes when I was touching the pad, the cursor would not 
move even when I moved my finger.) Within the top right quadrant of 
the screen, it was extremely difficult to accurately position the 
cursor.  [The four-corner-calibration keypress did not help.]

I ended up licking my finger (to make its skin more moist).  That 
cut back on the wild jumps the cursor was making, although there was 
not always a correlation between the distance my finger moved, and 
the distance the cursor moved.

[Back home, the cursor again behaved correctly.]

mikus