The first computer mouse, held by inventor Douglas Engelbart, showing the wheels that make contact with the working surface. (Source: Wikipedia & Cern Courier)
Although not popularized for home PC’s until the later part of the 80′s, the first mouse was created in 1968. Originally with two wheels on the underside used to input motion, in 1972 the ball mouse was born and became the staple for several decades. Attempts to overcome the problem of the ball mouse getting gunked up with the laser mouse design, but the expense and need to use it on a specially printed grid pad made it find traction only in niche markets like CAD. As digital cameras became more popular and cheaper, the multi-pixel CCD required for the optical mouse that works on just about any non-glossy surface made it a practical solution that has now replaced almost all other designs.
The inspiration for the ball mouse actually came from another pointing device invented shortly before the first mouse: the trackball. The first trackball was a secret Canadian military project that used a standard 5-pin bowling ball for input. Later, scaled down versions became a popular alternative to the pointing stick on portable computers. And Missile Command.
Eventually most laptops had their trackball replaced with a trackpad, a smooth surface that you could run your finger over. The later advent of the multi-touch trackpad that was aware of where and at how many places it was being touched made them popular enough that you can buy trackpads by themselves for desktop computers.
The mouse itself is still the most common form of input for PC’s and other desktop devices, but various advantages of trackpads and trackballs have kept them relevant. For many enthusiasts and hard core users, your pointing device choice is an important part of the experience.
Which do you prefer and why?
["User Input" is the AtomicToasters Question of the Day™ asking you, the teeming millions, to answer our pressing questions.]
Well I do really miss the days of cleaning mouse balls.
No, dude, I'm not letting you wash my balls.
I've never liked trackballs. I never felt like I got the hang of them and they always felt a little clumsy to me. I'm not all that crazy about trackpads either, though my experience with multi-touch is limited. Give me a mouse any day. Some Thinkpads had a little rubber nipple thing in the middle of the keyboard – I tried one once and it seemed to work pretty well, though I've heard that they got flaky with use pretty quickly.
My problem with them is that they force you to do detail work with your thumb, which is not the most dextrous of phalanges. That said, I do fine at XBox, but I can not manage to use a trackball right to save my life.
Hey, I've held that mouse in my hand! I was peripherally involved in a project that created five copies of the first mouse. The copies are easy to tell from the original as they were "fixed": they don't have the broken front shown in the picture.
The original was machined out of a solid block of wood. The copies were created by doing a 3D scan of the original body and CNC cut out of wood. The wheels (disks really) are turned aluminum.
On the inside, each wheel is connected to a potentiometer which was directly wired to the computer (I think it timed a capacitor charge circuit to measure the resistance).
As a result, this mouse was an absolute pointing device, much like a digitizing tablet or touch screen.
After residing at my employers headquarters for many years, I believe it to be at the Smithsonian.
As far as I know, the replicas do not have potentiometer in them. We did toy with the idea of interfacing the original mouse to a modern board that would allow it to work as a USB mouse. Other
revenue generatingprojects prevented it from happening…I had the privilege to chat with Doug Engelbart a couple of times. His institute is still around: http://dougengelbart.org/
That's awesome!
<img src="http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt237/jskitter/hooniverse/Spaceball.jpg">
For serious CAD work, to me there's no substitute for a mouse and a multifunction Spaceball. I started out doing Solidworks with a touchpad, bought a (rarely-used) puck of a spaceball, and finally got a deal on on of these. It. Is. Excellent. I can custom program all the buttons, so my left hand almost never comes off the ball, and my right is rarely off the mouse.
I'd take the mouse any day, but I quite liked the nipple on my last work laptop(IBM). I found it to be much better than the track pad when I had to go mouseless. In fact I disabled the track pad altogether because it would get false inputs every time I brushed against it while fondling the nipple. Did I mention I liked the nipple? My newer work laptop is a Dell, and it's nipple is not as good as the IBM, but I still like it better than the track pad.
I tried a desktop track ball for a few days but couldn't get the hang of it.
I'm sure it's all in what you are used to, but Lordy don't get me started on Xbox controller vs keyboard and mouse.
Love my Trackman! After starting to fell some carpal tunnel pain I switched the to the ball and have never looked back!
<img src="http://www.aerocooler.com/products/MOLT904353_m.gif" width="400">