5 ms·

90s Cursor Effects

60 points by plurby 11y ago

LeoPanthera 11y ago
I remember one particularly annoying one from that era was an analogue clock that used to surround the mouse pointer. I wonder if that still exists anywhere.
- detaro 11y ago
  Saw this in the issues? https://github.com/tholman/90s-cursor-effects/issues/2#issuecomment-180867624 https://github.com/tholman/90s-cursor-effects/issues/2#issue...
  - LeoPanthera 11y ago
    That's the one! Ah, memories. It seems weird when not combined with a GeoCities logo.
- moron4hire 11y ago
  gads, I remember making one of those.
frik 11y ago
Suggestion: search through the Geocity, Tripod, ... archives that survived and use Archive.org About mouse cursors and effects: Windows 95 Plus CD contained many desktop themes incl various themed cursor, background wallpapers, animated screensaver. Wonderful for its time.
wlesieutre 11y ago
I have fond memories of the "Elastic Bullets" trail (all the cool kids had it on their websites). Most of my early javascript snippets came from javascript.internet.com [1], but I found a copy on yaldex [2]. More classics available there and javascript-fx.com [3] [1] http://web.archive.org/web/20000619201149/http://javascript.internet.com/ http://web.archive.org/web/20000619201149/http://javascript.... [2] http://www.yaldex.com/FSMessages/ElasticBullets.htm http://www.yaldex.com/FSMessages/ElasticBullets.htm [3] http://javascript-fx.com/mouse_trail/index.html http://javascript-fx.com/mouse_trail/index.html
- albertoleal 11y ago
  How is yaldex.com and javascript-fx.com still running? Are the folks who created them still around and paying for the host and domain?
- degenerate 11y ago
  Came here to post this, and was glad to see it already :) Here's a page that has them a little more like I remember: http://rainbow.arch.scriptmania.com/scripts/elasticballs.html http://rainbow.arch.scriptmania.com/scripts/elasticballs.htm...
elinchrome 11y ago
Those were faster in the late 90s. How is it so slow?
- rescbr 11y ago
  My guesses: OOP-style JS and translate3D CSS for moving the objects around.
- tamana 11y ago
  How did it work back then? A transparent canvas overlay? CSS element position changes?
  - PavlovsCat 11y ago
    > A transparent canvas overlay Yes. Using the DOM for a lot of individual spans totally kills this.
pierrec 11y ago
"To be added (Please, go ahead!) [...] Cursor Trail" This was an OS feature (and still is, at least on Win7), rather than a cheesy webpage effect. The browser was never allowed to know what the cursor looks like, so it's impossible for webpages to implement a native-looking mouse trail that works consistently. The OS mouse trail was super useful on LCD screens with sluggish pixels: without it, the cursor would be essentially invisible if you moved the mouse too fast. Couldn't use my NEC Ready 120LT without this feature!
- 6502nerdface 11y ago
  > The OS mouse trail was super useful on LCD screens with sluggish pixels: without it, the cursor would be essentially invisible if you moved the mouse too fast. It's also (still) super useful for visually impaired users.
  - toyg 11y ago
    I've also found it very useful to bend VmWare Fusion to my will -- between Windows in the guest, VmWare and the OSX host (with high-res / Retina screens), the cursor is often "off" relative to the actual pointer... until I enable the trail in Windows, at which point everything works properly. I have no idea why.
    - wtallis 11y ago
      Most cursor glitches end up being a mismatch between hardware-drawn cursors and software-rendered. Turning the trails on forces Windows to draw the cursor in software, which puts the cursor much earlier in the graphics pipeline and makes it much more accessible to other things like f.lux or apparently Fusion's integration.
oliv__ 11y ago
This brought back memories from old times: I can remember copying some Javascript code to a forum I used to manage to get snow flakes to fall on the screen (during christmas). I loved the effect!
envy2 11y ago
This reminds me of cleaning the Comet Cursor[1] adware, which did this (and other random and obnoxious effects), off of people's PCs back in the early 2000s. IIRC, it was bundled with Real Player and usually accompanied with Gator... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Cursor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Cursor
Cyberdog 11y ago
I know this is probably a losing battle, but I have to try: The cursor is the text insertion point. The thing that moves when you move the mouse and is arrow-shaped by default is correctly called the pointer.
- webwielder2 11y ago
  The name of the thing is whatever people refer to it as.
- dalke 11y ago
  The publication record shows that "mouse cursor" is completely acceptable. For examples from https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22mouse+cursor%22 https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22mouse+cursor%22 : Smalltalk-72 manual (1976), page 2 - http://mame.myds.me/bitsavers/pdf/xerox/parc/techReports/Smalltalk-72_Instruction_Manual_Mar76.pdf http://mame.myds.me/bitsavers/pdf/xerox/parc/techReports/Sma... : > The Mouse: The little rectangular object with three buttons that usually sits to the right of the keyboard is called a mouse. Move it around while watching the screen. An arrow (mouse cursor) will be moving in response to it. This is how we point to objects on the screen. Raster Graphics for Interactive Programming Environments (1979) - http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/www.bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/parc/techReports/CSL-79-6_Raster_Graphics_for_Interactive_Programming_Environments.pdf http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/www.bitsavers.org/pdf/xer... > Graphical input. The user is provided with a "mouse," a coordinate input device with three pushbuttons. The mouse rolls along a table top and is tracked by a cursor that moves on the screen. The mouse can thus be used to point to objects already displayed on the screen, or simply to identify a coordinate position. The Blit: A Multiplexed Graphics Terminal ("Sometime in 1983", by Rob Pike) - http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.611.4835&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.611... > The state of mouse input is reflected by the cursor tracked by the mouse as it is moved. Usually, the cursor is an arrow pointing to the pixel at the mouse’s location. A program may change the cursor to reflect its state. A Study in Interactive 3-D Rotation Using 2-D Control Devices" (1990) - http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/asellen/publications/3-D%20rotation%2088.pdf http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/asellen/public... > If the mouse button is depressed while the mouse cursor is inside the circle, left-and-right and up-and-down movement of the mouse will rotate the object left-and right and up-and-down on the screen. Fluid DTMouse: Better Mouse Support for Touch-Based Interactions (2006) - http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.416.277&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.416... > For example, once you have moved the mouse cursor over a small target that is to be dragged, you do not want the act of switching to mouse dragging mode to move the cursor off of the target .
dookahku 11y ago
I got really excited when I saw the title, thinking this would be like my old VT100 days or something. :(

60 points by plurby 11y ago

I remember one particularly annoying one from that era was an analogue clock that used to surround the mouse pointer. I wonder if that still exists anywhere.

detaro 11y ago
Saw this in the issues? https://github.com/tholman/90s-cursor-effects/issues/2#issuecomment-180867624 https://github.com/tholman/90s-cursor-effects/issues/2#issue...
- LeoPanthera 11y ago
  That's the one! Ah, memories. It seems weird when not combined with a GeoCities logo.
moron4hire 11y ago
gads, I remember making one of those.

frik 11y ago

Suggestion: search through the Geocity, Tripod, ... archives that survived and use Archive.org About mouse cursors and effects: Windows 95 Plus CD contained many desktop themes incl various themed cursor, background wallpapers, animated screensaver. Wonderful for its time.

wlesieutre 11y ago

I have fond memories of the "Elastic Bullets" trail (all the cool kids had it on their websites). Most of my early javascript snippets came from javascript.internet.com [1], but I found a copy on yaldex [2]. More classics available there and javascript-fx.com [3] [1] http://web.archive.org/web/20000619201149/http://javascript.internet.com/ http://web.archive.org/web/20000619201149/http://javascript.... [2] http://www.yaldex.com/FSMessages/ElasticBullets.htm http://www.yaldex.com/FSMessages/ElasticBullets.htm [3] http://javascript-fx.com/mouse_trail/index.html http://javascript-fx.com/mouse_trail/index.html

albertoleal 11y ago
How is yaldex.com and javascript-fx.com still running? Are the folks who created them still around and paying for the host and domain?
degenerate 11y ago
Came here to post this, and was glad to see it already :) Here's a page that has them a little more like I remember: http://rainbow.arch.scriptmania.com/scripts/elasticballs.html http://rainbow.arch.scriptmania.com/scripts/elasticballs.htm...

elinchrome 11y ago

Those were faster in the late 90s. How is it so slow?

rescbr 11y ago
My guesses: OOP-style JS and translate3D CSS for moving the objects around.
tamana 11y ago
How did it work back then? A transparent canvas overlay? CSS element position changes?
- PavlovsCat 11y ago
  > A transparent canvas overlay Yes. Using the DOM for a lot of individual spans totally kills this.

pierrec 11y ago

"To be added (Please, go ahead!) [...] Cursor Trail" This was an OS feature (and still is, at least on Win7), rather than a cheesy webpage effect. The browser was never allowed to know what the cursor looks like, so it's impossible for webpages to implement a native-looking mouse trail that works consistently. The OS mouse trail was super useful on LCD screens with sluggish pixels: without it, the cursor would be essentially invisible if you moved the mouse too fast. Couldn't use my NEC Ready 120LT without this feature!

6502nerdface 11y ago
> The OS mouse trail was super useful on LCD screens with sluggish pixels: without it, the cursor would be essentially invisible if you moved the mouse too fast. It's also (still) super useful for visually impaired users.
- toyg 11y ago
  I've also found it very useful to bend VmWare Fusion to my will -- between Windows in the guest, VmWare and the OSX host (with high-res / Retina screens), the cursor is often "off" relative to the actual pointer... until I enable the trail in Windows, at which point everything works properly. I have no idea why.
  - wtallis 11y ago
    Most cursor glitches end up being a mismatch between hardware-drawn cursors and software-rendered. Turning the trails on forces Windows to draw the cursor in software, which puts the cursor much earlier in the graphics pipeline and makes it much more accessible to other things like f.lux or apparently Fusion's integration.

oliv__ 11y ago

This brought back memories from old times: I can remember copying some Javascript code to a forum I used to manage to get snow flakes to fall on the screen (during christmas). I loved the effect!

envy2 11y ago

This reminds me of cleaning the Comet Cursor[1] adware, which did this (and other random and obnoxious effects), off of people's PCs back in the early 2000s. IIRC, it was bundled with Real Player and usually accompanied with Gator... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Cursor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Cursor

Cyberdog 11y ago

I know this is probably a losing battle, but I have to try: The cursor is the text insertion point. The thing that moves when you move the mouse and is arrow-shaped by default is correctly called the pointer.

webwielder2 11y ago
The name of the thing is whatever people refer to it as.
dalke 11y ago
The publication record shows that "mouse cursor" is completely acceptable. For examples from https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22mouse+cursor%22 https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22mouse+cursor%22 : Smalltalk-72 manual (1976), page 2 - http://mame.myds.me/bitsavers/pdf/xerox/parc/techReports/Smalltalk-72_Instruction_Manual_Mar76.pdf http://mame.myds.me/bitsavers/pdf/xerox/parc/techReports/Sma... : > The Mouse: The little rectangular object with three buttons that usually sits to the right of the keyboard is called a mouse. Move it around while watching the screen. An arrow (mouse cursor) will be moving in response to it. This is how we point to objects on the screen. Raster Graphics for Interactive Programming Environments (1979) - http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/www.bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/parc/techReports/CSL-79-6_Raster_Graphics_for_Interactive_Programming_Environments.pdf http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/www.bitsavers.org/pdf/xer... > Graphical input. The user is provided with a "mouse," a coordinate input device with three pushbuttons. The mouse rolls along a table top and is tracked by a cursor that moves on the screen. The mouse can thus be used to point to objects already displayed on the screen, or simply to identify a coordinate position. The Blit: A Multiplexed Graphics Terminal ("Sometime in 1983", by Rob Pike) - http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.611.4835&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.611... > The state of mouse input is reflected by the cursor tracked by the mouse as it is moved. Usually, the cursor is an arrow pointing to the pixel at the mouse’s location. A program may change the cursor to reflect its state. A Study in Interactive 3-D Rotation Using 2-D Control Devices" (1990) - http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/asellen/publications/3-D%20rotation%2088.pdf http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/asellen/public... > If the mouse button is depressed while the mouse cursor is inside the circle, left-and-right and up-and-down movement of the mouse will rotate the object left-and right and up-and-down on the screen. Fluid DTMouse: Better Mouse Support for Touch-Based Interactions (2006) - http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.416.277&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.416... > For example, once you have moved the mouse cursor over a small target that is to be dragged, you do not want the act of switching to mouse dragging mode to move the cursor off of the target .

dookahku 11y ago

I got really excited when I saw the title, thinking this would be like my old VT100 days or something. :(