3 ms·

I count the optical mouse among the more significant developments in computer history. People today will never know the pain of using a mouse with accumulated

by p1mrx 10y ago

I count the optical mouse among the more significant developments in computer history. People today will never know the pain of using a mouse with accumulated gunk on the rollers. At my high school, they started supergluing the compartments shut to prevent tampering, so I had to carry a Phillips screwdriver and remove the whole bottom to get a usable mouse.

wolfgke 10y ago
I know that until optical mice matured and high-precision optical mice appeared, there were many gamers who still preferred mechanical mice (with a ball) since they felt they were more precise and less error-prone (i.e. cursor suddenly moving when it should not or the other way round), though mechanical mouses were a lot more high-maintenance. I personally have a decent optical mouse on my desk, but also another (rather recently bought) optical mouse that sometimes "stutters" - this may be related to the material of my desk pad (in other words: If I were to buy a good mouse pad the problem would disappear). But this should deliver further evidence for the previous paragraph.
- mrob 10y ago
  The first camera based optical mouse was the Microsoft Intellimouse. They released various types all with the same sensor. These were superb mice for the time, and still good by modern standards. Unlike a lot of competitors (even today) the sensor had pure linear response, no smoothing, no angle snapping, no forced acceleration. It was ideal for gaming. It couldn't cope with very fast movement but it was possible to poll the USB port at a higher frequency which increased the maximum speed before error. 500Hz polling was popular (supported in Linux with the usbhid module's mousepoll option, available with hacked drivers in Windows). The sensor resolution was a somewhat low 400DPI but with the display resolutions people played at back then it wasn't a major issue. Any problems with erratic movement were caused by excessively shiny surfaces. Preferring ball mice was pure superstition. All the competitive players switched once they realized how much better the optical mice were. I still use an Intellimouse today (with replaced microswitches after the originals wore out).
  - kqr 10y ago
    400 DPI isn't low. There are only so many dots per inch a human hand can distinguish between.
    - mrob 10y ago
      If you play with low sensitivity it's plenty, but the Intellimouse family wasn't well suited to low sensitivity because it loses linearity if you move it too fast. With high sensitivity you can notice the imprecision. There's a middle ground where there's no problem, but sensitivity is a personal preference and you might not like that sensitivity.
- slau 10y ago
  Check whether you can increase the Lift-Off Distance (LOD) in the mouse's configuration. I have a good quality mouse pad, but that specific material, combined with the specific sensor in my mouse meant that having an LOD setting of 1 (it's a scale value from one to 5) would make the mouse work fine, except for intermittent stuttering that made me think there was dust on the sensor. Disclaimer: I had to download the mouse's Win-only utility to change this setting.
burfog 10y ago
There was a crud-free mechanical design by Hawley, most commonly seen with VAX and DECstation computers. Patent 4,628,755 (and maybe 3,892,963) describes it and probably prevented popular usage. http://www.oldmouse.com/mouse/hawley/ http://www.oldmouse.com/mouse/hawley/ http://www.oldmouse.com/mouse/hawley/wheels.shtml http://www.oldmouse.com/mouse/hawley/wheels.shtml http://www.oldmouse.com/articles/hawley/DECbottoms.shtml http://www.oldmouse.com/articles/hawley/DECbottoms.shtml
- yusyusyus 10y ago
  nice! i saw one of these very recently at a friends house. we were marveling at how this would have been much better than the old rollers.
nullc 10y ago
I miss opening the mouse to remove crud.
- qb45 10y ago
  Get a trackball. They still accumulate crud under the ball which sometimes hinders movements or obscures the sensor.

by p1mrx 10y ago

wolfgke 10y ago

I know that until optical mice matured and high-precision optical mice appeared, there were many gamers who still preferred mechanical mice (with a ball) since they felt they were more precise and less error-prone (i.e. cursor suddenly moving when it should not or the other way round), though mechanical mouses were a lot more high-maintenance. I personally have a decent optical mouse on my desk, but also another (rather recently bought) optical mouse that sometimes "stutters" - this may be related to the material of my desk pad (in other words: If I were to buy a good mouse pad the problem would disappear). But this should deliver further evidence for the previous paragraph.

mrob 10y ago
The first camera based optical mouse was the Microsoft Intellimouse. They released various types all with the same sensor. These were superb mice for the time, and still good by modern standards. Unlike a lot of competitors (even today) the sensor had pure linear response, no smoothing, no angle snapping, no forced acceleration. It was ideal for gaming. It couldn't cope with very fast movement but it was possible to poll the USB port at a higher frequency which increased the maximum speed before error. 500Hz polling was popular (supported in Linux with the usbhid module's mousepoll option, available with hacked drivers in Windows). The sensor resolution was a somewhat low 400DPI but with the display resolutions people played at back then it wasn't a major issue. Any problems with erratic movement were caused by excessively shiny surfaces. Preferring ball mice was pure superstition. All the competitive players switched once they realized how much better the optical mice were. I still use an Intellimouse today (with replaced microswitches after the originals wore out).
- kqr 10y ago
  400 DPI isn't low. There are only so many dots per inch a human hand can distinguish between.
  - mrob 10y ago
    If you play with low sensitivity it's plenty, but the Intellimouse family wasn't well suited to low sensitivity because it loses linearity if you move it too fast. With high sensitivity you can notice the imprecision. There's a middle ground where there's no problem, but sensitivity is a personal preference and you might not like that sensitivity.
slau 10y ago
Check whether you can increase the Lift-Off Distance (LOD) in the mouse's configuration. I have a good quality mouse pad, but that specific material, combined with the specific sensor in my mouse meant that having an LOD setting of 1 (it's a scale value from one to 5) would make the mouse work fine, except for intermittent stuttering that made me think there was dust on the sensor. Disclaimer: I had to download the mouse's Win-only utility to change this setting.

burfog 10y ago

There was a crud-free mechanical design by Hawley, most commonly seen with VAX and DECstation computers. Patent 4,628,755 (and maybe 3,892,963) describes it and probably prevented popular usage. http://www.oldmouse.com/mouse/hawley/ http://www.oldmouse.com/mouse/hawley/ http://www.oldmouse.com/mouse/hawley/wheels.shtml http://www.oldmouse.com/mouse/hawley/wheels.shtml http://www.oldmouse.com/articles/hawley/DECbottoms.shtml http://www.oldmouse.com/articles/hawley/DECbottoms.shtml

yusyusyus 10y ago
nice! i saw one of these very recently at a friends house. we were marveling at how this would have been much better than the old rollers.

nullc 10y ago

I miss opening the mouse to remove crud.

qb45 10y ago
Get a trackball. They still accumulate crud under the ball which sometimes hinders movements or obscures the sensor.