Toshiba laptop aggravation

I have three Toshiba laptops due to ignorant purchases over time. All
three have a mousepad in front of the keyboard which has an auto-click
function - if you tap it with a finger, it moves the focus to the
current cursor location. The problem with all three is that during
normal 10-finger typing, thumb movement near the pad causes an
inadvertent auto-click, messing up my typing.

I want to turn the auto-click function off. Anybody know how?

Richard Henry wrote:
I have three Toshiba laptops due to ignorant purchases over time. All
three have a mousepad in front of the keyboard which has an auto-click
function - if you tap it with a finger, it moves the focus to the
current cursor location. The problem with all three is that during
normal 10-finger typing, thumb movement near the pad causes an
inadvertent auto-click, messing up my typing.

I want to turn the auto-click function off. Anybody know how?


Hoping it works like on my laptops: Go into the Control Panel -> Mouse
-> Hardware -> Tapping -> uncheck the box "Enable Tapping". That's it.

While at it you might as well turn off other over-sophistications such
as "click lock". That's what I do the instant I get a new laptop, even
before installing any apps.

I use them with real PS/2 mice. Those mousepads are awful.

It's weird to buy a computer for less than a scope probe.

Hi John,

John Larkin wrote:

[win98 laptops]

I use them with real PS/2 mice. Those mousepads are awful.

Most mousepads are sited in the wrong place. But, then
again, with a laptop you haven't much choice...

It's weird to buy a computer for less than a scope probe.

frown> We discard laptops with anything less than a Piii.

On Thu, 11 Mar 2010 07:49:37 -0800, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Richard Henry wrote:
I have three Toshiba laptops due to ignorant purchases over time. All
three have a mousepad in front of the keyboard which has an auto-click
function - if you tap it with a finger, it moves the focus to the
current cursor location. The problem with all three is that during
normal 10-finger typing, thumb movement near the pad causes an
inadvertent auto-click, messing up my typing.

I want to turn the auto-click function off. Anybody know how?

Hoping it works like on my laptops: Go into the Control Panel -> Mouse
-> Hardware -> Tapping -> uncheck the box "Enable Tapping". That's it.

While at it you might as well turn off other over-sophistications such
as "click lock". That's what I do the instant I get a new laptop, even
before installing any apps.

I just bought four used Win98 laptops. They have real parallel ports
and floppies, and '98 programs can do direct port i/o, so they are
handy for lots of things. I use them to run uP background debugger
pods. And I use them as "print servers" with my Epson wide-carriage
fanfold printers (copy file from XP onto a floppy, carry over to
laptop, print.) The Epson Windows USB drivers always install in Polish
or some strange language that I can't understand, and don't seem to
want to print in fast mode now matter how you play with them. From the
laptop parallel port, they print full blast with no drivers at all.

I use them with real PS/2 mice. Those mousepads are awful.

It's weird to buy a computer for less than a scope probe.

It's much simpler here. I use a Barricade firewall-router and it has a
built in parallel port so the old HP-Laser mutated into another network
printer.

[snip]

On Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:41:51 -0800, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

[snip]
It's much simpler here. I use a Barricade firewall-router and it has a
built in parallel port so the old HP-Laser mutated into another network
printer.

[snip]

I used to do that, then I got an hp P2015dn (double-sided printing)
which came with a network port.

Hi John,

John Larkin wrote:
On Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:38:49 -0700, D Yuniskis
not.going.to.be_at_seen.com> wrote:

John Larkin wrote:

[win98 laptops]

I use them with real PS/2 mice. Those mousepads are awful.
Most mousepads are sited in the wrong place. But, then
again, with a laptop you haven't much choice...

It's weird to buy a computer for less than a scope probe.
frown> We discard laptops with anything less than a Piii.

Right. Big companies unload, sometimes, thousands of working laptops.
Brokers buy them by the pallet, refurb, and resell them with a
warranty. They can be handy to have around sometimes. It doesn't take
a Core Duo to wiggle bits on a parallel port.

I had a decent older laptop with *built-in* AC power supply
(eliminates the problem of having to buy replacement batteries
for something that is rarely used :< ). But, I opted to discard
it in one of my periodic "purges".

I've held onto a Compaq "Portable 386" (lunchbox, not the
luggable). Big, yes. And had to hack the BIOS to get
support for even a 300 *MB* disk. But, keeps two ISA slots
available for me (something I don't have in any of the
other machines, here).

Unfortunately, I don't have another machine with a 5" floppy
so I can't create the "SETUP floppy" to reinitialize the CMOS
now that the battery died. (<frown> I was smart enough to save
images of all the floppies -- but forgot to save a drive that
could write them... other than the one in the Compaq!)

I am hoping, someday, to have time to see if I can hack a
USB 3" floppy drive to accept a 5" drive, instead (no idea
how closely the controllers in those floppies are wed to
the actual 3" drive! I don't expect much joy...)

On Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:38:49 -0700, D Yuniskis
not.going.to.be_at_seen.com> wrote:

John Larkin wrote:

[win98 laptops]

I use them with real PS/2 mice. Those mousepads are awful.
Most mousepads are sited in the wrong place. But, then
again, with a laptop you haven't much choice...

It's weird to buy a computer for less than a scope probe.
frown> We discard laptops with anything less than a Piii.

Right. Big companies unload, sometimes, thousands of working laptops.
Brokers buy them by the pallet, refurb, and resell them with a
warranty. They can be handy to have around sometimes. It doesn't take
a Core Duo to wiggle bits on a parallel port.

You can get a clean working '98 laptop on ebay for around $50. A
refurb IBM from a broker, with 6 month warranty and a good battery,
goes for about $250.

D Yuniskis wrote:
Hi John,

John Larkin wrote:
On Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:38:49 -0700, D Yuniskis
not.going.to.be_at_seen.com> wrote:

John Larkin wrote:

[win98 laptops]

I use them with real PS/2 mice. Those mousepads are awful.
Most mousepads are sited in the wrong place. But, then
again, with a laptop you haven't much choice...

It's weird to buy a computer for less than a scope probe.
frown> We discard laptops with anything less than a Piii.

Right. Big companies unload, sometimes, thousands of working laptops.
Brokers buy them by the pallet, refurb, and resell them with a
warranty. They can be handy to have around sometimes. It doesn't take
a Core Duo to wiggle bits on a parallel port.

I had a decent older laptop with *built-in* AC power supply
(eliminates the problem of having to buy replacement batteries
for something that is rarely used :< ). But, I opted to discard
it in one of my periodic "purges".

I've held onto a Compaq "Portable 386" (lunchbox, not the
luggable). Big, yes. And had to hack the BIOS to get
support for even a 300 *MB* disk. But, keeps two ISA slots
available for me (something I don't have in any of the
other machines, here).


You can still buy PCs with ISA slots. And you will be able to for a
loooong time. ISA is here to stay because of many industrial uses.

D Yuniskis wrote:

I had a decent older laptop with *built-in* AC power supply
(eliminates the problem of having to buy replacement batteries
for something that is rarely used :< ). But, I opted to discard
it in one of my periodic "purges".

I've held onto a Compaq "Portable 386" (lunchbox, not the
luggable). Big, yes. And had to hack the BIOS to get
support for even a 300 *MB* disk. But, keeps two ISA slots
available for me (something I don't have in any of the
other machines, here).

You can still buy PCs with ISA slots. And you will be able to for a
loooong time. ISA is here to stay because of many industrial uses.

Unfortunately, I don't have another machine with a 5" floppy
so I can't create the "SETUP floppy" to reinitialize the CMOS
now that the battery died. (<frown> I was smart enough to save
images of all the floppies -- but forgot to save a drive that
could write them... other than the one in the Compaq!)

I am hoping, someday, to have time to see if I can hack a
USB 3" floppy drive to accept a 5" drive, instead (no idea
how closely the controllers in those floppies are wed to
the actual 3" drive! I don't expect much joy...)

In a desktop the controller can do it, at least in my Dell here (Foxconn
mobo). But the BIOS does not support 5-1/4"

On Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:09:23 -0800, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

D Yuniskis wrote:
Hi John,

John Larkin wrote:
On Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:38:49 -0700, D Yuniskis
not.going.to.be_at_seen.com> wrote:

John Larkin wrote:

[win98 laptops]

I use them with real PS/2 mice. Those mousepads are awful.
Most mousepads are sited in the wrong place. But, then
again, with a laptop you haven't much choice...

It's weird to buy a computer for less than a scope probe.
frown> We discard laptops with anything less than a Piii.

Right. Big companies unload, sometimes, thousands of working laptops.
Brokers buy them by the pallet, refurb, and resell them with a
warranty. They can be handy to have around sometimes. It doesn't take
a Core Duo to wiggle bits on a parallel port.

I had a decent older laptop with *built-in* AC power supply
(eliminates the problem of having to buy replacement batteries
for something that is rarely used :< ). But, I opted to discard
it in one of my periodic "purges".

I've held onto a Compaq "Portable 386" (lunchbox, not the
luggable). Big, yes. And had to hack the BIOS to get
support for even a 300 *MB* disk. But, keeps two ISA slots
available for me (something I don't have in any of the
other machines, here).


You can still buy PCs with ISA slots. And you will be able to for a
loooong time. ISA is here to stay because of many industrial uses.

Got any links? We've had a hard time getting mobos with ISA slots, as
spares for older systems. We just refurbed a 10-year-old magnetic
field mapper system and had a hard time getting parts. Our customer
was breathing down our neck, as the mapper is in the critical path of
a billion-dollar annual revenue stream.

Yeah, so doesn't buy you much. :< I am hoping that the
controller in the 3.5 usb floppies is smart enough to
see the difference in a 5" -- much like you can repurpose
an external USB CD-R/W to be an external (hard) disk.

I suspect the 5" went disappeared too soon for the makers
of these controllers to support it. :-/

Hi John,

John Larkin wrote:
On Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:38:49 -0700, D Yuniskis
not.going.to.be_at_seen.com> wrote:

John Larkin wrote:

[win98 laptops]

I use them with real PS/2 mice. Those mousepads are awful.
Most mousepads are sited in the wrong place. But, then
again, with a laptop you haven't much choice...

It's weird to buy a computer for less than a scope probe.
frown> We discard laptops with anything less than a Piii.

Right. Big companies unload, sometimes, thousands of working laptops.
Brokers buy them by the pallet, refurb, and resell them with a
warranty. They can be handy to have around sometimes. It doesn't take
a Core Duo to wiggle bits on a parallel port.

I had a decent older laptop with *built-in* AC power supply
(eliminates the problem of having to buy replacement batteries
for something that is rarely used :< ). But, I opted to discard
it in one of my periodic "purges".

I've held onto a Compaq "Portable 386" (lunchbox, not the
luggable). Big, yes. And had to hack the BIOS to get
support for even a 300 *MB* disk. But, keeps two ISA slots
available for me (something I don't have in any of the
other machines, here).

Unfortunately, I don't have another machine with a 5" floppy
so I can't create the "SETUP floppy" to reinitialize the CMOS
now that the battery died. (<frown> I was smart enough to save
images of all the floppies -- but forgot to save a drive that
could write them... other than the one in the Compaq!)