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20 Years Ago, Microsoft introduced its optical mouse
- bobowzki 7y agoI didn't really enjoy that article because I find it to thin on technical history and engineering. It's mostly about one man's experience with buying a computer mouse.
- coldtea 7y agoThe premise is totally correct though, and not just "one man's experience": that generation of MS mice changed the mainstream mouse landscape towards laser-based mice. (I've used such before, on Sun workstations, but PC as users we didn't have that luxury, we had the easy to clog and collect dust, potentially jumpy, not very accurate balls in our mice).
- closetohome 7y agoTo be fair, they beat the rest of the market to optical mice by a few months, but everybody used the same third party sensor/chip.
- tjoff 7y agoThe shape was also way better than anything that existed back then (from what I recall). Since Microsoft don't have anything in the same segment anymore I have a brutally hard time to purchase a mouse today.
- kalleboo 7y agoWe had an optical Mouse Systems mouse for our Mac Classic in the early 90's, they weren't exclusively the domain of expensive Sun machines.
- jablan 7y agoI've recently watched a review of one of those, paired with a computer from back then: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBhA25qjL8Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBhA25qjL8Q
- slantyyz 7y agoI had the Mouse Systems A+ optical mouse with the metal mousepad for my Mac SE, and it was great for the time.
- rasz 7y agoHere you go - Oral History of Gary Gordon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxxoWhCzIeU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxxoWhCzIeU HP engineer (later Avago), inventor of the sensor.
- flukus 7y agoAnd to this day their OS still considers the scroll wheel on top of it to be part of the keyboard.
- ken 7y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19778672 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19778672
- beamatronic 7y agoThe TI Explorer LISP machine from the 1980s had an optical mouse. What I recall about the Microsoft mouse is that it was a broadly available affordable optical mouse. I have vivid memories cleaning my Amiga mouse with a Velcro ball and pad contraption.
- magduf 7y agoNo, that's not it. Sun Microsystems had optical mice too, back in the early 90s, on their SPARCstations. The difference was that the early optical mice required a special mousepad for them to work. I think they just used some photodiodes and looked at the reflections from the mousepad, which had a pattern built in. The optical mouse starting with MS's worked in a different way, using an actual camera to track movement, so you could use them on almost any surface.
- crispyambulance 7y agoI remember those: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_Systems The pad did indeed have a special reflective pattern. There was also a circular-shaped mouse from that era, now I can't remember if it was DEC or Sun.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y agoDEC had a puck mouse with two tilted wheels on the bottom.
- acomjean 7y agoI used one of those. It actually kinda worked. Some internet digging finds a picture: https://www.oldmouse.com/mouse/hawley/wheels.shtml https://www.oldmouse.com/mouse/hawley/wheels.shtml
- Aloha 7y agoI actually switched from using Mouse Systems optical mice to a Intelimouse Explorer, I never really used any ball mice, ever
- cwyers 7y agoI was so excited when they announced that they were bringing this back as the IntelliMouse Classic. It's amazing how much they got right that most mice today don't get right.
- hs86 7y agoI am left-handed and the IntelliMouse Optical was my favorite mouse. It broke after a couple of years and then I just bought three of them in bulk packaging for the same price! Today, I use the SteelSeries Sensei models which kind of are modern versions of this mouse: https://steelseries.com/gaming-mice/sensei-raw https://steelseries.com/gaming-mice/sensei-raw
- sharkweek 7y agoI remember when my school got a handful of Macintosh computers in the early 90s. My friend's mom came into the classroom for a parent day shortly after, and I remember my friend asking her to try out this new cool thing. When he was showing her the mouse and keyboard, she picked up the mouse and rolled the little rubber ball on the underside around with her finger to move the cursor. We all got a kick out of it at the time. Now that I have young children, I wonder what my moment of "don't really get how this is supposed to work" will be when my kids show me some new technology.
- Finnucane 7y agoNo, your friend's mom was correct. She was figuring out that the trackball is superior to the mouse. It was obvious to her.
- LyndsySimon 7y agoYep. I used a Microsoft Trackball Optical for many years, and found it much easier on my hands. After some time I found that I was much more accurate with it as well, and about as fast as using a mouse. I played a lot of CS with that trackball, and I never once felt it held me back. I did get made fun of a few times at LAN parties when I whipped that thing out, though! I miss LAN parties :(
- sundvor 7y agoI was also among the first to get the optical MS mouse - the days of cleaning lint were finally over! I jumped over to the MS Trackball Optical on developing onset of RSI though - until laser mice by Logitech just ended up feeling comfortable enough in my hand (the G9X). Presently I have a Kensington Slimblade and a Logitech G903 at home - trackball on left, mouse on right. It feels like I've reached a certain pinnacle of tech here; both products are great. Due to RSI I try to mix up my hand usage; I've become ambidextrous as far as input controllers are concerned. LAN parties are great. When getting older, it's good for your mental health to set aside some time to just hang out with friends - even if it's just once or twice a year.
- 7y ago
- brianprovost 7y agoI have been using a series Intellimouse 1.1 Opticals since the early 2000's but they are getting harder to find now. Even when sold "new" now (https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826105122 https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E1682610...) they seem to be old stock or factory seconds and do not sit level or have one or more broken buttons. Any suggestions for a replacement? The new Intellimouse Classic does not have the right side button.
- evandev 7y agoCheck out this comment: > Today, I use the SteelSeries Sensei models which kind of are modern versions of this mouse: https://steelseries.com/gaming-mice/sensei-raw https://steelseries.com/gaming-mice/sensei-raw [0] 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19851273 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19851273
- larrik 7y agoI replaced an 2001 or 2002 Intellimouse with a Sensei a few years ago. Then it broke and I got a warranty replacement (upgraded to the full model). Then THAT broke and I replaced it with a Logitech (which is fine, although I spilled coffee all over it). Meanwhile, the Intellimouse is still 100% functional in my laptop bag.
- brianprovost 7y agoMy Intellimice last for a few years but eventually either the rubber coating on the scroll wheel detaches or the left button starts occasionally double clicking instead of single clicking. I'll try out the Sensei, thanks.
- larrik 7y agoBoth my Sensei's developed issues with the scroll wheel. Otherwise they're really nice.
- PeanutNore 7y agoI've been using the same Microsoft Optical USB mouse at work since 2008. It's so heavily used that the textured plastic has been polished completely smooth where my hand touches it. It's great and I hope it never fails. Also... >and a desktop workstation that while powerful at the time, would be laughable today (16MB of RAM baby!). 16MB of RAM would have been laughable in a workstation in 1999 as well. The fairly basic family Dell we got in 1998 came with 32MB. The budget gaming PC I built in 2000 had 128MB. A powerful workstation in 1999 would have had 256MB.
- noir_lord 7y agoYeah I raised an eyebrow at that as well. IIRC in 1999-2000 I had a Geforce 256, 128Mb of RAM and an overclocked Duron.
- bashinator 7y ago> an overclocked Duron Hah, did you also pencil in the traces on the CPU package to unlock the multiplier?
- tboughen 7y agoI had a Pentium II 333, and used the “tape over a pin” trick to change the multiplier from 66 to 100 and clock it at 400mhz!
- hnlmorg 7y agoAround that time (maybe a year later?) I had an ABIT BP6 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABIT_BP6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABIT_BP6) with 2x Celeron II's. They were 500MHz but trivially easy to overclock to 800MHz and above (I think I could get it to just about 900MHz but it became unstable at that point). To this day I still consider that to be one of the best PCs I've ever used - let along owned.
- tonyarkles 7y ago
- jockc 7y agoI think my first experience with an optical mouse was on a Data General unix workstation around 1990 or so. It needed a special pad; the pad was metal and had a grid pattern on it. The mouse was somewhat less responsive than ball mice at the time.
- dmurray 7y agoI don't remember the mechanical mice being bad. I cleaned them every few months, not every fifteen minutes, and the cursor dragged or jumped occasionally, not constantly. For me, the laser mouse was an incremental improvement rather than the game changer this article claims. Am I the only one?
- megous 7y agoNo you're not. What fails the most frequently are the microswitches, anyway. I wonder if wireless mouse using the ball would last much longer on battery. I guess, it could. It still uses a led light internally, but I don't think it needs to be that strong.
- LeifCarrotson 7y agoA wireless mouse could last indefinitely, if it used magnetic resolvers instead of encoders (and siphoned off a bit of the voltage to recharge the battery. I expect you could also make a self-powered keyboard with a coil and magnet under the spacebar...
- jakobegger 7y agoThe problem is, if you use the rollers to harvest energy, they would have higher resistance to rotation, and thus would slip even easier...
- tinus_hn 7y agoThe keyboard has to remain connected when you’re not using it.
- LeifCarrotson 7y agoWhy?
- hnlmorg 7y agoI don't recall any of the mechanical mice I've taken apart having LEDs inside them. IIRC had 3 rollers/wheels which physically touched the ball and that was what "sensed" the motion. I'm talking 90s sort of era though, so it's possible more recent mechanical mice were designed differently.
- Razengan 7y agoMicrosoft may have changed mice (I loved almost all their Intellimouse incarnations, and most of their other PC hardware like the awesome Sidewinder game controllers) but I find Apple's Magic Mouse to be closer to the ideal. It's a multitouch surface with several independent axes of control: Moving the mouse itself on the desk, swiping your fingers anywhere on the surface, tapping the surface, pressing the surface, with different effects depending on the number of fingers, the direction of the swipe gestures or which side you tap/press on (emulating left and right buttons.) The body/shape may not be everyone's cup of cacao and I still prefer the discrete steps of a physical mouse wheel when scrolling through content like a list of images (because they fly too many at a time with swipe gestures), but for everything else you can't beat the flexibility of a touch surface, especially when panning through 360° content which a 1-axis wheel can't do well, even with "tilt-scrolling." A Magic Mouse with "taptic" feedback (with the optional sensation of discrete buttons under your fingers) may be the perfection we seek. If you find the default set of options and gestures too limiting there's BetterTouchTool [1] which lets power users customize Apple's input devices including the Touch Bar. [0] https://www.apple.com/ae/shop/product/MLA02ZM/A/magic-mouse-2-silver https://www.apple.com/ae/shop/product/MLA02ZM/A/magic-mouse-... [1] https://folivora.ai https://folivora.ai
- simonh 7y agoThe last time I bought a Magic Mouse it lasted about 30 minutes. I installed some apps, loaded my family photos, then decided to try my favourite first person shooter and have some fun in high detail settings. Right-click to zoom in the sniper rifle and - dang it, I can't shoot! The top is a single surface, so you can't hold down the right button and left click at the same time. Checks settings - no way to re-map aim to the keyboard. MagicMouse -> Bin
- dijit 7y agoNo love for that particular peripheral myself but; That’s completely on you, the Magic Mouse was never marketed as a gaming mouse. You can of course argue that it should be capable of what you expect from a mouse, but this is obviously a concept mouse aimed at doing other things.
- louthy 7y agoI still use the original cream Intellimouse Optical [1] and have bought a stash of them for the future. I’m yet to find anything as ergonomic to use [1] http://www.bluetoothmousetech.com/microsoft-intellimouse-optical-1-1a-gaming-mouse-white?___store=uk http://www.bluetoothmousetech.com/microsoft-intellimouse-opt...
- gfodor 7y agoTo me is the best mouse ever created.
- driverdan 7y agoThere are much better and more comfortable mice now. Logitech's MX line of wireless mice are more comfortable and precise. Their gaming mice are also better if you prefer wired.
- msla 7y agoI prefer the Logitech M705.
- frosted-flakes 7y agoThe toggle-able free-spinning scroll wheel on the M705 was a game-changer for me. When I got the mouse, I was working for a place that had a lot of buggy spaghetti-code programs that interfaced with a massive database, and I often ended up manually scrolling through million-row tables in Toad correcting broken or missing data. It made my life sooo much easier. I later upgraded to a MX Master ($100) which automatically enables free-spinning mode when you scroll quickly. It's fully adjustable, and it works super well.
- netrap 7y agoI use this one as well. I think it's my long term choice. I got one for work and home. Battery lasts ages, wireless is pretty good. I do notice that a big ol' wifi router next to it will interfere...
- kaetemi 7y ago
- dariusj18 7y agoNo mouse discussion would be complete without mention of the greatest mouse ever made, the Logitech MX Revolution. Logitech would truly outshine themselves if they merged the MX Revolution and the G602.
- CharlesW 7y agoHave you tried the Logitech M705? I find it to be the perfect mouse.
- dariusj18 7y agoNot enough buttons IMO
- LyndsySimon 7y agoFunny you should say that - I've always loved Logitech's gaming mice, and found their wireless versions to be especially good for productive work as well. For a long time I had automatic profiles set up for different software that remapped the buttons of my G602 to perform all sorts of actions. About two years ago I switched to a desktop for gaming, and shortly thereafter went with a wired mouse (a SteelSeries Rival 500). My G602 lives on as my 10-year-old daughter's mobile mouse for her laptop, though. That thing is ancient and still going strong.
- shmerl 7y agoI like Logitech G400s, it feels very ergonomic.
- rqqt 7y agoMX518 was popular also, right?! (They actually re-released it recently)
- turtlebits 7y agoThe greatest mouse ever made is the MX518. I've been using mine since 2007, and I bought one as a backup a few years back. Logitech just re-released it and I may buy one out of curiosity.
- kubbity 7y agoI started to use an Anker[0] mouse few years (1-2?) ago for work and I can't turn back. [0] - https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B018LR04B8/ref=psdcmw_11036491_t1_B07CT9X48L https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B018LR04B8/ref=psdcmw_1103649...
- SJetKaran 7y agoSame here, 2+ years now
- city41 7y agoI have a similar ergonomic mouse. Once you get used to it, it's fantastic. One day I forgot my usb receiver and had to use a normal mouse and it was a bad day.
- bryan2 7y agoI've bought three so far. Work, Home and one for an ex absolutely love them.
- zghst 7y agoWe also forget that in 1999, Microsoft was a massive monopoly that consumed everything in the tech industry... Now innovation comes from all directions, the tech industry can breathe!
- bdcravens 7y agoThere were many hardware manufacturers then, as now. Perhaps the hardware division benefitted from name recognition afforded by the OS monopoly but there was no monopoly there. Around 98-01, IMO they genuinely had the best mice and keyboards.
- handzbagz1 7y agoThey still do if you ask me. They seem to be good at simple and durable designs.
- jdlyga 7y agoI'm still using that exact same mouse. It's my lucky programming mouse I've been using since 2008.
- bryanrasmussen 7y agoAnecdotally I am convinced at best they changed how we mouse for about 15 years, if indeed a significant portion of people still mouse.
- logfromblammo 7y agoI recall using that 3-button SPARC mouse on a rigid, semi-reflective, gridded mouse pad, and also a Logitech optical trackball, with patterned black dots on a red marble, long before optical mouse tech could work on any surface. If you waited until the MS Intellimouse to go optical to relieve your Photoshop woes, you weren't being very proactive. I even recall using a Wacom stylus-tablet, and I wasn't even a graphics creator or manipulator. I'd argue that those mouses from around 2000 with the vibration motors in them were more revolutionary to mousing, as it allowed for cheap haptic feedback. It's really too bad the TouchSense tech wasn't licensed loosely enough by Immersion to get more than annoying toy applications for it to alter your desktop experience (and Black & White). Every time I get a little vibration bump through my finger on a touchscreen, I remember that could have already been everywhere 15 years ago.
- lscotte 7y agoI had the same recollection - I'm pretty sure I used a Sun Workstation with an optical mouse back in the late 80s. Clearly Microsoft did not invent the optical mouse, but the early ones required a special gridded pad.
- sandworm101 7y agoI abandoned windows on my home machines because of a Microsoft mouse. I had bought a new asus netbook. I intended to put linux on it but it came with some sort of student edition of windows. I thought I'd at least see how well ran out of the box. So I plugged in my decade-old and trustworthy MS mouse. "Need to connected to internet to download drive for external mouse" ... windows was then dead to me.
- jrace 7y agoHow long ago was that> I have not had a mouse, wired or wireless, fail to function in windows, internet connection or not. They all just work almost instantly.
- sandworm101 7y ago2007? 2008? - It was the student edition on a $150 netbook. I plugged in the mouse shortly after turning it on. Maybe if I had fully booted into windows ... but once I stopped laughing shut it down and installed backtrack.
- micheljansen 7y agoFor me it was Logitech that forever changed my mousing experience somewhere in early 2000. Their Logitech Optical USB mouse (this one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Original-Logitech-Optical-Mouse-Buttons/dp/B00S6CHX9U https://www.amazon.co.uk/Original-Logitech-Optical-Mouse-But...) was the first optical mouse on the market here. It was outrageously expensive for my teenager budget, but with a USB-to-PS/2 adapter and some Windows utility to tweak the OS refresh rate it gave me a real advantage in Unreal Tournament. No more gunk messing up accuracy. I used it for years and if I’d still have it, I don’t doubt that it would still work.
- ohyeshedid 7y agoIt's been years since I've even thought about tweaking sampling rates for mice.
- noer 7y agoI was just thinking about how much I miss cleaning compacted dirt off of the wheels inside of my mouse. It was so satisfying. edit: not being sarcastic at all. I actually miss the cleaning.
- Magi604 7y agoI got one of these when it first came out. It cost something like $45cdn, which was absurd at the time for just a basic mouse, but it was so worth it never to have to clean that ball thing again. It worked just great until about 5 or 6 years ago when it was destroyed in a fire.
- mixmastamyk 7y agoI remember being pretty good at scraping the hardened goo off the rollers with my finger nail.
- i386 7y agoIn the old days the most under appreciated Microsoft division was Microsoft Hardware. Keyboards and mice were top notch.
- jxramos 7y ago> (Tabs hadn’t been invented yet.) Wow, so true.
- postalrat 7y agoJust reminded me the asheron's call developer named devilmouse.
- sircastor 7y agoI remember paying some ridiculous amount for an intellimouse explorer in 1999 or so, and being so thrilled (and baffled) that Microsoft provided drivers for it. Fantastic mouse. I still have it, though it started having some issues
- lebowskier 7y agoI remember this!