23 ms·

Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?

471 points by wscourge 3y ago

ulrischa 3y ago
Xerox parc again. I have the feeling everything we have today was invented in this place. How was it possible that it was so successful and influencial?
- gjvc 3y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14108797 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14108797
behnamoh 3y ago
The real question is: Why does Windows cursor look "imperfect"? https://mspoweruser.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/windows-cursor.jpg https://mspoweruser.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/windows-c...
- promiseofbeans 3y ago
  I saw this somewhere the other day - the explanation I saw there was that it makes the cursor seem more balanced
  - wscourge 3y ago
    I was looking at both of them for probably a little too long, and I can't see it.
- simondotau 3y ago
  The web page which that image is sourced from[0] and the reddit page it is in turn sourced from[1] makes a lot of hand-wavey analogies to optical balancing (which is a real phenomenon[2]) but doesn't make any compelling arguments for why they apply in this specific case. An alternative explanation is that this intentional imperfection exists to match the unavoidable imperfection which occurred when the cursor graphic was originally drawn as tiny low resolution 1-bit pixel art. It looks correct because we're used to it being slightly wrong. And when viewed at a normal size, the difference is barely perceptible anyway. [0] https://mspoweruser.com/why-windows-10s-asymmetrical-cursor-is-better/ https://mspoweruser.com/why-windows-10s-asymmetrical-cursor-... [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fwnep0/thanks_i_hate_the_cursor/ https://old.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fwnep0/thanks_i_hate_... [2] edited, thanks jusuhi
  - p-e-w 3y ago
    I'm honestly not sure any explanation is needed here. Early UX design wasn't always done with as much thought and sophistication as today's software designers (are claiming to) apply. The first Windows systems had plenty of UI blunders that make the cursor thing look insignificant by comparison, and I can promise you they weren't all about "visual balance" or similar. Lots of them have carried over to later versions.
    - gjvc 3y ago
      [flagged]
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - treflop 3y ago
      UX may not have been as big back then but there’s nooo way no one noticed it being uneven if there was any designer involved. I just always assumed it was an artist’s style choice.
      - isleyaardvark 3y ago
        I'd assume it was a deliberate choice because I'd think it'd be easier to implement a graphic with straight lines than with lines just off enough to be noticeable.
    - troupo 3y ago
      > Early UX design wasn't always done with as much thought and sophistication as today's software designers (are claiming to) apply. Oh, but it was. Here's Apple HIG from 1987 listing extensive bibliography on the subject: https://x.com/andy_matuschak/status/1447409175596699652 https://x.com/andy_matuschak/status/1447409175596699652 (here's the full PDF: https://andymatuschak.org/files/papers/Apple%20Human%20Interface%20Guidelines%201987.pdf https://andymatuschak.org/files/papers/Apple%20Human%20Inter...) Modern "designers" apply as much thought and care as a hungry goldfish at feeding time
- account-5 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - eastbound 3y ago
    There was no patent about rounded rectangles. Please stop spreading fake news; News are sensationalized by journalists to the point the reader has an impression they said something that journalists didn’t; Do not repeat them. It’s just that Samsung was the Concordski of the Concorde, it was copying Apple’s designs to the letter, from the unboxing experience to the charger even to the home button. It was an obvious copyright infringement. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/apples-case-that-samsung-copied-the-iphone-and-ipad-in-pictures/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/apples-case-that...
    - bigfudge 3y ago
      I think you are right in substance, but from memory the radius of the corners of the copy phones did form part of the court case.
      - troupo 3y ago
        Yes. It formed a part of the case. The rounded corners part was a part of the whole design package discussed.
    - nottorp 3y ago
      I didn't follow the lawsuit but i remember seeing a large cardboard model of a samsung phone in a store back then; it wasn't similar to whatever Apple was peddling at the time, it was identical. At least from like 5 m. So they may have had a point in suing.
  - stouset 3y ago
    This is tired and uninformed, please just let it die. Apple was issued a design patent which is a real, common thing and is highly specific. It isn’t just patenting a roundrect and calling it a day.
- mmerlin 3y ago
  a recurring peeve of mine is small tooltips becoming unreadable underneath the cursor which blocks them from being read... then you move the cursor away the tooltip disappears from view... this could actually be fixed at some point in the future
- gjvc 3y ago
  other operating systems are available.
- wolpoli 3y ago
  The current high-resolution cursor seems like a scaled-up version of the original cursor. Perhaps it's that way for compatibility reason since there are tons of monitors using 100% scaling.
  - ack_complete 3y ago
    At larger scale factors, Windows renders the cursor from an SVG source. It's not clear if there would be a compatibility issue with straightening the arrow image at larger scales since it uses a hardcoded .cur image at small sizes. Additionally, Windows 10/11 go to some extent to hide cursor scaling from applications. Win32 GDI/USER calls only see the base 32x32 arrow cursor and only DXGI Output Duplication (screen capture API) can see the real cursor. This causes other problems, though, such as various bugs and inconsistencies with custom cursor images.
- wazoox 3y ago
  Because Windows is made with poor attention to details and in a tasteless manner. For instance, when Windows XP came out, I remember clearly how some stock icons weren't properly aligned on the same baseline (it was corrected in some later SP).
  - hacym 3y ago
    Fascinating! Computers didn’t exist before Windows or Windows XP!
weinzierl 3y ago
I have no idea, but a wild guess is that with old hardware the "hot" pixel that could trigger the collision interrupt was fixed to the upper left corner of the hardware sprite. EDIT: Another thought that crossed my mind is that with very lo-res screens a corner is the only way to get a well defined and sharp (yet fairly wide) arrowhead. The trade-off would be the shaft being pixelated, but the tip is more important.
- p-e-w 3y ago
  Did early workstations support hardware cursors?
- jusuhi 3y ago
  If you'd actually read wherever the link is going then you could get an idea instead of just speculating wildly.
- rgj 3y ago
  That was debunked 10 years ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7253841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7253841
raverbashing 3y ago
Xerox Park and display reasons aside, I think that the 2nd answer, with the picture of the hand is the best answer apart from historical and technical reasons.
- jusuhi 3y ago
  The "best answer" perhaps from the POV of your own intuition. But the question is about a historical fact, and those don't work that way.
  - mcmoor 3y ago
    I guess first is the reason why it's initially and second is why it stay that way.
  - travisjungroth 3y ago
    > Is this a legacy thing or does a tilted cursor serves a purpose? It's not just a question of historical fact. There's where it originated from. Then there are the documented reasons they first did it that way. Then the undocumented but plausible reasons it started that way. Then there are the reasons it has stayed this way. Those reasons aren't facts, they're counterfactuals. Implicit in asking why the mouse cursor is like this is asking why it isn't a different way. If there was a better enough cursor, it would have won out. So all of its reasons of functionality, even the ones the inventor didn't think of or didn't matter historically, are part of why it is the way it is today.
- wscourge 3y ago
  For unrelated reasons it got me thinking of Mark Zuckerberg telling Joe Rogan how they left only the hand (and not the whole arm) in their VR, as it was enough. Random thought.
Feathercrown 3y ago
One compelling reason is so that when pointing at something with the cursor, it doesn't block the thing you're pointing at. If the cursor was mirrored or even centered, hovering over a button would obscure some of the button. This assumes you approach from the bottom right though, which may be in turn because of the cursor's shape-- but I think reading direction is a stronger theory for why you'd want to approach from the bottom right.
- stinos 3y ago
  This was my first reaction as well, but checking how I actually use a mouse I don't think it makes sense. Curious if it's jut me though. For starters for normal desktop usage like >95% of the time the thing I want to click on isn't under the mouse yet so it doesn't obscure anything. Instead I move the mouse to it and by the time the mouse is there I don't care what is under it anymore because the decision to click it was made already. Second when the mouse is over something I need to be able to read it seems I tend to move the mouse away (even when it's over text and turns into a straight cursor). The reason being that no matter what cursor is used its lines are typically wider and higher than the lines in rendered characters underneath so always obscures something. In other words: even if the cursor weren't tilted it would still obscure the same amount of surface, but just in a slightly different location. And that's really only slightly so for practical use won't matter. Wrt where something is approached from: that depends on where the cursr is and where the target is. It would be really interesting to put this in a heatmap from daily usage, but I quickly checked some of the things I access often, like in my bottom taskbar and browser tab bar at the top, and since the things clicked often are both left and right of the screen and my cursor can be seeminlgy anywhere there might still be one approach direction used more but only by some marging. Lastly most software I checked where obsucring could actually matter (e.g. CAD) uses custom cursors like 1 pixel wide crosses etc, not something tilted.
  - bhaak 3y ago
    This might be true today but on the lower resolution screens of the 80s, the mouse pointer was relatively bigger than it is today.
vintagedave 3y ago
Time for one of my favourite Youtube videos, by Posy (Michiel de Boer.) 'Mouse cursor history (and why I made my own).' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YThelfB2fvg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YThelfB2fvg It runs through the history of mouse cursors, as well as problems with some of the standard ones, and shows, among other things, historical cursors which were straight and not tilted. It is one of those amazing videos that make the internet worthwhile, is short, and is by the author of Posy's Cursor Pack, http://www.michieldb.nl/other/cursors/ http://www.michieldb.nl/other/cursors/
- loceng 3y ago
  Seems like this should be in a list somewhere with that big sized keyboard history book that was on HN last week?
  - Sakos 3y ago
    Oh, dang, I can't believe I missed that. Would've loved to get a copy of it. It looks amazing.
- hacb 3y ago
  It was really interesting and well-made, thanks for sharing!
- Shorel 3y ago
  Great video and great link. I use his set on Windows (It looks awesome) and on Ubuntu, the Linux port from here: https://github.com/simtrami/posy-improved-cursor-linux https://github.com/simtrami/posy-improved-cursor-linux
- itomato 3y ago
  I'm not sure this is accurate. He shows the IIGS cursor as the Lisa "Color mode" cursor, for one thing. He never mentions the NeXT environment, DPS and differences in DPI, their own black and white arrow cursor, and how that cursor actually came into Mac OS X, not the one from System 1 and onward. Hmm.
euroderf 3y ago
"When the XEROX PARC machine was built, the cursor changed into a tilted arrow. It was found that, given the low resolution of the screens in those days, drawing a straight line (left edge of arrow) and a line at a 45 degree angle (right edge of arrow) was easier to do and more recognizable than the straight cursor." Well there ya go right there. The left side of the arrowhead is a nice clean straight line, and the right side of the arrowhead is as close as possible to 45 degrees, cutting down its "jaggedness".
haunter 3y ago
Because it mimics the fountain pen? That’s how you hold it when you write with one (the cursor being the virtual tip) https://youtu.be/U9mWKwXfF6s?t=155s https://youtu.be/U9mWKwXfF6s?t=155s
- al_borland 3y ago
  If this is the case, should someone using a left handed mouse have a cursor that tilts the opposite way?
  - lb1lf 3y ago
    Don't we? I distinctly recall that when I was using a left-handed mouse on WinNT 4 in the nineties, the mouse pointer was reversed? Whether that was the original cursor or just someone at IT being a leftie and installing a custom cursor, though, I have no idea. I later found it much better for me to simply use my right hand for mousing about, leaving my left hand free for taking notes.
- bluenose69 3y ago
  Thanks for the link! As a fountain pen addict, I found the video captivating. I was curious, though, as to why the person was printing, not writing. Sad.
ChrisArchitect 3y ago
(2014)
UberFly 3y ago
[flagged]
raffraffraff 3y ago
Without reading everything there is on the subject, I'd guess it's tilted for the same reason it's tilted to the left. Humans are tool makers and tool users. After enough time the tool becomes an extension of the body, even if the tip of the tool is mechanically or virtually detached from the hand that is controlling it. The tool maker designed this as a right-handed tool, coming into the frame in the right hand. If the reason for the tilt direction was not this, then there would be no reason why it shouldn't tilt the other way. If you're right handed, try a right-leading cursor . It doesn't just look wrong, it feels wrong because it looks like a tool held in the left hand. Does this have an effect on left-handed people? Perhaps. I'm left handed and it always felt wrong to use the mouse in my left hand. Is it because of the direction of the tilt? Who knows!
- szundi 3y ago
  Try reversing it, I’m curious
- m12k 3y ago
  >Without reading everything there is on the subject Everything, or in this case the second answer on the linked page ;) I do believe you are (both) on to something though.
- vasco 3y ago
  What matters is the hand you use your mouse with, I'm left handed for writing and most things but use the right hand for the mouse and it doesn't feel strange.
  - arrrg 3y ago
    Why do you use your mouse with the right hand? I’m also left handed and use the mouse with my right hand, I think mostly because my parents bought a computer table with our first computer that had the spot for the mouse fixed on the right side (keyboard drawer with just enough space for the keyboard alone and below that a little extra drawer to the right to create space for the mousepad and mouse when the keyboard drawer is open). So I had to learn using the computer that way … Seems inconsiderate from my parents, but I think they just didn’t think about that aspect.
Stratoscope 3y ago
It's a bit scary to see that one of the highest-voted answers to this question (188 points) is completely wrong. It says that the (0,0) hotspot simplified the calculations for a cursor position update, because you didn't have to add any (X,Y) offset. https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/52349/43259 https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/52349/43259 The problem with this idea is that the arrow pointer was never the only cursor. On the first Macintosh, there were many others including the text I-beam and a couple of kinds of crosshairs. And you could define any cursor of your own by providing a bitmap and transparency mask and the hotspot position. You can see some of these cursors in the original Inside Macintosh Volume I and also in previous works from PARC. https://web.archive.org/web/20230114223619/https://vintageapple.org/inside_o/pdf/Inside_Macintosh_Volume_I_1985.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20230114223619/https://vintageap... Page 50 of the PDF (page I-38 of the document) shows some sample cursors. Page 158 of the PDF (page I-146 of the document) has the pixel detail and hotspot locations for several cursors. Fun fact! The hotspot for the arrow cursor was not (0,0) but was (1,1). Can anyone explain why? I think I used to know, but it has long since escaped my memory and I would appreciate a refresher. This page also has the definition of the Cursor structure: TYPE Bits16 = Array[0..15] OF INTEGER; Cursor = RECORD data: Bits16; {cursor image} mask: Bits16; {cursor mask} hotSpot: Point; {point aligned with mouse} END; Point is defined on page I-139 and is more or less what you would expect, a pair of vertical and horizontal coordinates. To be clear, the scary part is not that someone came up with the idea that (0,0) saved a few instructions. In fact, the notion came up elsewhere in this HN discussion. It's a perfectly reasonable hypothesis, until you realize that there are many cursor shapes that require different hotspots. The scary part is that 188 people upvoted this answer!
- zb 3y ago
  The arrow has a white outline around it, so the hotspot is at the tip of the black arrow, at (1,1).
  - reddalo 3y ago
    And if I'm not wrong, it still applies to today's Mac interface. The cursor still has a white outline all around.
wodenokoto 3y ago
Top answer [1] (when I'm looking, others seems to refer to other top answers) says that the original cursor _was_ straight, and links to an image, which 404's [2]. Anyone have a working link? [1] https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/52338 https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/52338 [2] http://origin.arstechnica.com/images/gui/4-NLSgui.jpg http://origin.arstechnica.com/images/gui/4-NLSgui.jpg
- AndroTux 3y ago
  https://web.archive.org/web/20190628045230/http://origin.arstechnica.com/images/gui/4-NLSgui.jpg https://web.archive.org/web/20190628045230/http://origin.ars...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
stkdump 3y ago
Another reason is likely clipping. When drawing the cursor you have to prevent pixels from being drawn off screen to the right or bottom of the screen. If the cursor were symmetric, you would have to watch out for the left edge of the screen as well.
LAC-Tech 3y ago
I feel the need to immediately change to an upward pointing cursor to honour Douglas Engelbart.
anileated 3y ago
The point of a pointer is that it should stand off against the things it points at. A usual GUI for the most part has straight edges and certain symmetries. A cursor that is similarly symmetric will blend in more easily, and get visually lost. Which way it tilts is secondary, the irregularity of the tilt itself against the rest of the interface is key.
- swozey 3y ago
  I don't know if it's me getting old or new HDR/5120 res/monitors with crazy white/black levels but I had to recently change my cursor color from white to green because I started losing it on all white screens.
  - anileated 3y ago
    macOS has this “shake to enlarge cursor” setting, can be useful occasionally, though I never know what with what intensity do I shake.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
baxuz 3y ago
For a better deep dive into mouse cursors with more information, there's Posy's "Mouse Cursor History (and why I made my own)": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YThelfB2fvg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YThelfB2fvg It also shows how absolutely horrid Windows' cursor designs are. They always were. I still remember making my own sets back in the early 2000s when DeviantArt was the home of desktop customization.
rkagerer 3y ago
I'm surprised nobody has posited an "obscurity" rationale. When the majority of your information is vertical/horizontal (such as text, window elements, etc), an angled cursor makes it easier to interpolate what's underneath. And the arrow shape keeps the bulk of the icon out of the way of your point of interest (compared to, for example, a reticle - although I expect we'd adapt just fine).
mort96 3y ago
There's ... a lot of dubious and unsourced or poorly sourced answers there.
shahzaibmushtaq 3y ago
I agree with all the reasons mentioned ranging from calculating the vertex position - sharp tip of the arrow (x, y) to the pixel issue (low resolution on older machines) to the right-hand pointing direction. For all practical purposes, I observed 2 other things. The first is that English is written left to write. If you ever had the experience of using a different language that starts from right to left, this same arrow feels weird. And the second is a little activity experience. 1. Arrange the 4 files in a square box, 2 up 2 down 2. Notice that as soon as the sharp point of the arrow touches any file boundary, the arrow can select the file by a pixel difference that you can't with a straight arrow (ease of use) 3. It also takes a constant number of operations (best case scenario) compared to the straight arrow where the algorithm has to decide based on the percentage of how much of the straight arrow shape hovers over another file to select
AtNightWeCode 3y ago
My theory. When hovering or clicking on an icon more of the icon is visible with a tilted arrow.
Cockbrand 3y ago
I'd like to add to all of the reasons I find valid (not obscuring what one is pointing at, mimicking pointing with a finger) that everything displayed on the screen is pretty much perpendicular to the x or y axis. The tilted cursor thus sticks out among the rest of the content. As an aside, as a typical Amiga quirk, the early Amiga mouse cursor was tilted in a 45° angle to the x axis, contrary to all the other popular GUIs with more acute angles for the cursor. And there was a built-in tool for creating custom mouse cursors, which I personally loved. See for example http://toastytech.com/guis/amiga12.html http://toastytech.com/guis/amiga12.html
- bhaak 3y ago
  Including setting the hot spot. Similar to the Macintosh mouse pointer the click point was not at (0,0) but at (1,1) (the orange point in the skin colored area in the editor on the linked page).
- Findecanor 3y ago
  I'd think that the original Amiga arrow pointer could have got its stubby style because hardware sprite could only be in low resolution and 2:1-stepped lines did not look very good. The style was changed to a sharper point in Amiga OS 2.0 but it was still slanted 45°. First on the Amiga 1200/4000 with AGA could you get a high-resolution mouse pointer.
  - teo_zero 3y ago
    In Workbench 2.0+ it was slanted 45° with the two sides at 30° and 60°, it was red with a hint of 3D (light at the top-right, dark bottom-left) and was beautiful! It stood out on whatever background.
mike_hock 3y ago
The "saves a calculation" answer sounds like complete horseshit. Any machine fast enough to update a mouse cursor every time the mouse moves could have afforded two additional subtractions on a click event.
zoomablemind 3y ago
My understanding is that before mouse pointer there was a light pen aka light gun pointer. It was used perpendicularly to the screen, literally pointing at the desired location. Then, when implementing a more 'remote' on-screen pointer, the notion of pointing perpendicularly at the site was best projected by a tilted 2D marker. Think of the mouse pointer kinda sticking out of the screen as a dart. I can't imagine the arm strain the users of the light pen had to endure back in time ... Though the workflow was probably still more keyboard-bound. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pen https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pen
codesnik 3y ago
I suppose it makes more sense for left to right text interfaces?
ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
> It was found that, given the low resolution of the screens in those days, drawing a straight line (left edge of arrow) and a line at a 45 degree angle (right edge of arrow) was easier to do and more recognizable than the straight cursor. Ockham's Razor. It really is that simple. Having had to do a lot of "dot art," in The Days of Yore, I understand perfectly, why this choice was made. Some systems did an "unfilled" arrow, with just the outer barbs. Same angle of the shaft, but the barbs were at 90 degrees. Leaning left was chosen, because of the prevalence of righties. The "unfilled" arrow was easier to confuse with the background. I suspect that many of today's programmers would be absolutely aghast, at the resolution of our screens, back then. ResEdit FTW!
- crazygringo 3y ago
  Yup. The "stairs" of a 45° angle just looked visually smoother than an up-2-over-1 line which looked a bit jaggier. Not an earth-shattering difference, but a difference nonetheless.
sergiotapia 3y ago
look at your right hand right now. how is the mouse oriented? I would be $1000 it's a little to the left, just like your cursor!
- quesera 3y ago
  You are going to owe left-handed people a lot of money. :)
- Izkata 3y ago
  Or also the fingers of those of us using a touchpad/nub.
causality0 3y ago
I'm amazed none of the answers are pointing out that a straight cursor is completely non-naturalistic. A cursor tilted to the left resembles an arrow being held in the right hand and being used to point at something.
- Izkata 3y ago
  3 of them do, 2 with a hand pointing and 1 with people pointing sticks at chalkboards.
amelius 3y ago
I love Izhaki's visual explanation.
londons_explore 3y ago
Were the first mouse pointers graphical? I remember using a black rectangle as a mouse pointer in console based applications - it was literally one character of the console with inverted colors.
- kps 3y ago
  > Were the first mouse pointers graphical? Yes. Set aside a few hours to watch ‘The Mother of all Demos’.
elif 3y ago
Anyone struggling with the answer didn't grow up on 640x480 resolution. When you have so few pixels, you really want to be able to use the exact pixel you intend.
jturolla 3y ago
I was just going through my regular Sunday morning routine when I opened hn and realized I'm the second most upvoted answer to this question. That was 10 years ago. Is it right? Probably not. Did I answer instinctively? Yes. Is it a problem to keep it there? I don't think so, there are plenty of other explanations in the same page. Am I providing further evidence? No. Please refer to https://xkcd.com/386/ https://xkcd.com/386/
- ant6n 3y ago
  I guess the obsession to fix something that's wrong on the internet only applies to mistakes by other people, not one's own mistakes. Cuz really, it's the responsibility of other people to fix my mistakes.
akarve 3y ago
Most SO answers were non-answers or word salads. Thankfully one of you added an answer explaining that the cursor is already straight given that it must be visible from the graphics coordinate origin (upper left) and is 45 degrees wide. https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/149837/45927 https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/149837/45927
- pavel_lishin 3y ago
  Bart Gijssens's answer is neither of those things, and gives an explanation, including the historical rationale, and links to citations.
- Izkata 3y ago
  ...this is using wordplay to avoid answering the question. It doesn't explain anything. Also: > Thankfully one of you We can see your name.
ramesh31 3y ago
It's funny how much of this stuff comes down to just "because that's how someone did it first". I see this mirrored in my own work, where so many arbitrary decisions are maintained for no reason other than that they were chosen at the outset. Nice to see that applies to basically everything.
efitz 3y ago
Although the linked page was highly entertaining, I suspect (and this is pure speculation) that the real answer is that, to the people who had to make the original decisions back in the 70s and early 80s, the current design “looked better”. For subsequent implementations it is likely mostly inertia. Again this is all speculation but it doesn’t really have to be any more complex than that. As a side note in the early 80s as a teenager I wanted to write a space game on my Apple //e computer that had a wedge shaped spacecraft like a star destroyer or the spacecraft from Asteroids. I spent many many hours hand drawing the bitmaps for each size and rotation. The shapes always looked a little jagged, except in the +/- 45 degree orientations.
oq_pmg 3y ago
As someone who played with the DOS text mode fonts a little, I never bothered with that question, assuming left tilt of the arrow was a way to make it visually bigger / more visible
CharlesW 3y ago
None of the Stack Overflow answers mention Alan Kay, who created the angled mouse cursor at PARC. When asked about this¹, he responded: "The Parc mouse cursor appearance was done (actually by me) because in a 16x16 grid of one-bit pixels (what the Alto at Parc used for a cursor) this gives you a nice arrowhead if you have one side of the arrow vertical and the other angled (along with other things there, I designed and made many of the initial bitmap fonts). Then it stuck, as so many things in computing do." ¹ https://jameshk.com/mouse-cursor https://jameshk.com/mouse-cursor
- arduanika 3y ago
  Nor did they mention Mark Zuckerberg, who is still holding his head up high in the face of negative press: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/03/facebook-meta-silicon-valley-politics/677168/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/03/faceboo... giving the appearance that the mouse is tilted.
  - gymbeaux 3y ago
    Hail, Zucker
- jasomill 3y ago
  To see this mouse cursor in action, go to https://archives.loomcom.com/contraltojs/ https://archives.loomcom.com/contraltojs/ and follow the instructions under "Running Smalltalk 76".
prima-facie 3y ago
What an incredible historical resource that website is. Just look at the original Ethernet spec here: http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/xerox/ethernet/ http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/xerox/ethernet/
- jasomill 3y ago
  Seconded. Here's the power-on procedure for a UNIVAC I: http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/univac/univac1/UNIVAC1_Maintenance_Manual_Jan58.pdf#page=157 http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/univac/univac1/UNIVAC...

471 points by wscourge 3y ago

Xerox parc again. I have the feeling everything we have today was invented in this place. How was it possible that it was so successful and influencial?

gjvc 3y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14108797 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14108797

behnamoh 3y ago

The real question is: Why does Windows cursor look "imperfect"? https://mspoweruser.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/windows-cursor.jpg https://mspoweruser.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/windows-c...

promiseofbeans 3y ago
I saw this somewhere the other day - the explanation I saw there was that it makes the cursor seem more balanced
- wscourge 3y ago
  I was looking at both of them for probably a little too long, and I can't see it.
simondotau 3y ago
The web page which that image is sourced from[0] and the reddit page it is in turn sourced from[1] makes a lot of hand-wavey analogies to optical balancing (which is a real phenomenon[2]) but doesn't make any compelling arguments for why they apply in this specific case. An alternative explanation is that this intentional imperfection exists to match the unavoidable imperfection which occurred when the cursor graphic was originally drawn as tiny low resolution 1-bit pixel art. It looks correct because we're used to it being slightly wrong. And when viewed at a normal size, the difference is barely perceptible anyway. [0] https://mspoweruser.com/why-windows-10s-asymmetrical-cursor-is-better/ https://mspoweruser.com/why-windows-10s-asymmetrical-cursor-... [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fwnep0/thanks_i_hate_the_cursor/ https://old.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fwnep0/thanks_i_hate_... [2] edited, thanks jusuhi
- p-e-w 3y ago
  I'm honestly not sure any explanation is needed here. Early UX design wasn't always done with as much thought and sophistication as today's software designers (are claiming to) apply. The first Windows systems had plenty of UI blunders that make the cursor thing look insignificant by comparison, and I can promise you they weren't all about "visual balance" or similar. Lots of them have carried over to later versions.
  - gjvc 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - deleted 3y ago
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  - treflop 3y ago
    UX may not have been as big back then but there’s nooo way no one noticed it being uneven if there was any designer involved. I just always assumed it was an artist’s style choice.
    - isleyaardvark 3y ago
      I'd assume it was a deliberate choice because I'd think it'd be easier to implement a graphic with straight lines than with lines just off enough to be noticeable.
  - troupo 3y ago
    > Early UX design wasn't always done with as much thought and sophistication as today's software designers (are claiming to) apply. Oh, but it was. Here's Apple HIG from 1987 listing extensive bibliography on the subject: https://x.com/andy_matuschak/status/1447409175596699652 https://x.com/andy_matuschak/status/1447409175596699652 (here's the full PDF: https://andymatuschak.org/files/papers/Apple%20Human%20Interface%20Guidelines%201987.pdf https://andymatuschak.org/files/papers/Apple%20Human%20Inter...) Modern "designers" apply as much thought and care as a hungry goldfish at feeding time
account-5 3y ago
[flagged]
- eastbound 3y ago
  There was no patent about rounded rectangles. Please stop spreading fake news; News are sensationalized by journalists to the point the reader has an impression they said something that journalists didn’t; Do not repeat them. It’s just that Samsung was the Concordski of the Concorde, it was copying Apple’s designs to the letter, from the unboxing experience to the charger even to the home button. It was an obvious copyright infringement. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/apples-case-that-samsung-copied-the-iphone-and-ipad-in-pictures/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/apples-case-that...
  - bigfudge 3y ago
    I think you are right in substance, but from memory the radius of the corners of the copy phones did form part of the court case.
    - troupo 3y ago
      Yes. It formed a part of the case. The rounded corners part was a part of the whole design package discussed.
  - nottorp 3y ago
    I didn't follow the lawsuit but i remember seeing a large cardboard model of a samsung phone in a store back then; it wasn't similar to whatever Apple was peddling at the time, it was identical. At least from like 5 m. So they may have had a point in suing.
- stouset 3y ago
  This is tired and uninformed, please just let it die. Apple was issued a design patent which is a real, common thing and is highly specific. It isn’t just patenting a roundrect and calling it a day.
mmerlin 3y ago
a recurring peeve of mine is small tooltips becoming unreadable underneath the cursor which blocks them from being read... then you move the cursor away the tooltip disappears from view... this could actually be fixed at some point in the future
gjvc 3y ago
other operating systems are available.
wolpoli 3y ago
The current high-resolution cursor seems like a scaled-up version of the original cursor. Perhaps it's that way for compatibility reason since there are tons of monitors using 100% scaling.
- ack_complete 3y ago
  At larger scale factors, Windows renders the cursor from an SVG source. It's not clear if there would be a compatibility issue with straightening the arrow image at larger scales since it uses a hardcoded .cur image at small sizes. Additionally, Windows 10/11 go to some extent to hide cursor scaling from applications. Win32 GDI/USER calls only see the base 32x32 arrow cursor and only DXGI Output Duplication (screen capture API) can see the real cursor. This causes other problems, though, such as various bugs and inconsistencies with custom cursor images.
wazoox 3y ago
Because Windows is made with poor attention to details and in a tasteless manner. For instance, when Windows XP came out, I remember clearly how some stock icons weren't properly aligned on the same baseline (it was corrected in some later SP).
- hacym 3y ago
  Fascinating! Computers didn’t exist before Windows or Windows XP!

weinzierl 3y ago

I have no idea, but a wild guess is that with old hardware the "hot" pixel that could trigger the collision interrupt was fixed to the upper left corner of the hardware sprite. EDIT: Another thought that crossed my mind is that with very lo-res screens a corner is the only way to get a well defined and sharp (yet fairly wide) arrowhead. The trade-off would be the shaft being pixelated, but the tip is more important.

p-e-w 3y ago
Did early workstations support hardware cursors?
jusuhi 3y ago
If you'd actually read wherever the link is going then you could get an idea instead of just speculating wildly.
rgj 3y ago
That was debunked 10 years ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7253841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7253841

raverbashing 3y ago

Xerox Park and display reasons aside, I think that the 2nd answer, with the picture of the hand is the best answer apart from historical and technical reasons.

jusuhi 3y ago
The "best answer" perhaps from the POV of your own intuition. But the question is about a historical fact, and those don't work that way.
- mcmoor 3y ago
  I guess first is the reason why it's initially and second is why it stay that way.
- travisjungroth 3y ago
  > Is this a legacy thing or does a tilted cursor serves a purpose? It's not just a question of historical fact. There's where it originated from. Then there are the documented reasons they first did it that way. Then the undocumented but plausible reasons it started that way. Then there are the reasons it has stayed this way. Those reasons aren't facts, they're counterfactuals. Implicit in asking why the mouse cursor is like this is asking why it isn't a different way. If there was a better enough cursor, it would have won out. So all of its reasons of functionality, even the ones the inventor didn't think of or didn't matter historically, are part of why it is the way it is today.
wscourge 3y ago
For unrelated reasons it got me thinking of Mark Zuckerberg telling Joe Rogan how they left only the hand (and not the whole arm) in their VR, as it was enough. Random thought.

Feathercrown 3y ago

One compelling reason is so that when pointing at something with the cursor, it doesn't block the thing you're pointing at. If the cursor was mirrored or even centered, hovering over a button would obscure some of the button. This assumes you approach from the bottom right though, which may be in turn because of the cursor's shape-- but I think reading direction is a stronger theory for why you'd want to approach from the bottom right.

stinos 3y ago
This was my first reaction as well, but checking how I actually use a mouse I don't think it makes sense. Curious if it's jut me though. For starters for normal desktop usage like >95% of the time the thing I want to click on isn't under the mouse yet so it doesn't obscure anything. Instead I move the mouse to it and by the time the mouse is there I don't care what is under it anymore because the decision to click it was made already. Second when the mouse is over something I need to be able to read it seems I tend to move the mouse away (even when it's over text and turns into a straight cursor). The reason being that no matter what cursor is used its lines are typically wider and higher than the lines in rendered characters underneath so always obscures something. In other words: even if the cursor weren't tilted it would still obscure the same amount of surface, but just in a slightly different location. And that's really only slightly so for practical use won't matter. Wrt where something is approached from: that depends on where the cursr is and where the target is. It would be really interesting to put this in a heatmap from daily usage, but I quickly checked some of the things I access often, like in my bottom taskbar and browser tab bar at the top, and since the things clicked often are both left and right of the screen and my cursor can be seeminlgy anywhere there might still be one approach direction used more but only by some marging. Lastly most software I checked where obsucring could actually matter (e.g. CAD) uses custom cursors like 1 pixel wide crosses etc, not something tilted.
- bhaak 3y ago
  This might be true today but on the lower resolution screens of the 80s, the mouse pointer was relatively bigger than it is today.

vintagedave 3y ago

Time for one of my favourite Youtube videos, by Posy (Michiel de Boer.) 'Mouse cursor history (and why I made my own).' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YThelfB2fvg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YThelfB2fvg It runs through the history of mouse cursors, as well as problems with some of the standard ones, and shows, among other things, historical cursors which were straight and not tilted. It is one of those amazing videos that make the internet worthwhile, is short, and is by the author of Posy's Cursor Pack, http://www.michieldb.nl/other/cursors/ http://www.michieldb.nl/other/cursors/

loceng 3y ago
Seems like this should be in a list somewhere with that big sized keyboard history book that was on HN last week?
- Sakos 3y ago
  Oh, dang, I can't believe I missed that. Would've loved to get a copy of it. It looks amazing.
hacb 3y ago
It was really interesting and well-made, thanks for sharing!
Shorel 3y ago
Great video and great link. I use his set on Windows (It looks awesome) and on Ubuntu, the Linux port from here: https://github.com/simtrami/posy-improved-cursor-linux https://github.com/simtrami/posy-improved-cursor-linux
itomato 3y ago
I'm not sure this is accurate. He shows the IIGS cursor as the Lisa "Color mode" cursor, for one thing. He never mentions the NeXT environment, DPS and differences in DPI, their own black and white arrow cursor, and how that cursor actually came into Mac OS X, not the one from System 1 and onward. Hmm.

euroderf 3y ago

"When the XEROX PARC machine was built, the cursor changed into a tilted arrow. It was found that, given the low resolution of the screens in those days, drawing a straight line (left edge of arrow) and a line at a 45 degree angle (right edge of arrow) was easier to do and more recognizable than the straight cursor." Well there ya go right there. The left side of the arrowhead is a nice clean straight line, and the right side of the arrowhead is as close as possible to 45 degrees, cutting down its "jaggedness".

haunter 3y ago

Because it mimics the fountain pen? That’s how you hold it when you write with one (the cursor being the virtual tip) https://youtu.be/U9mWKwXfF6s?t=155s https://youtu.be/U9mWKwXfF6s?t=155s

al_borland 3y ago
If this is the case, should someone using a left handed mouse have a cursor that tilts the opposite way?
- lb1lf 3y ago
  Don't we? I distinctly recall that when I was using a left-handed mouse on WinNT 4 in the nineties, the mouse pointer was reversed? Whether that was the original cursor or just someone at IT being a leftie and installing a custom cursor, though, I have no idea. I later found it much better for me to simply use my right hand for mousing about, leaving my left hand free for taking notes.
bluenose69 3y ago
Thanks for the link! As a fountain pen addict, I found the video captivating. I was curious, though, as to why the person was printing, not writing. Sad.

ChrisArchitect 3y ago

(2014)

UberFly 3y ago

[flagged]

raffraffraff 3y ago

Without reading everything there is on the subject, I'd guess it's tilted for the same reason it's tilted to the left. Humans are tool makers and tool users. After enough time the tool becomes an extension of the body, even if the tip of the tool is mechanically or virtually detached from the hand that is controlling it. The tool maker designed this as a right-handed tool, coming into the frame in the right hand. If the reason for the tilt direction was not this, then there would be no reason why it shouldn't tilt the other way. If you're right handed, try a right-leading cursor . It doesn't just look wrong, it feels wrong because it looks like a tool held in the left hand. Does this have an effect on left-handed people? Perhaps. I'm left handed and it always felt wrong to use the mouse in my left hand. Is it because of the direction of the tilt? Who knows!

szundi 3y ago
Try reversing it, I’m curious
m12k 3y ago
>Without reading everything there is on the subject Everything, or in this case the second answer on the linked page ;) I do believe you are (both) on to something though.
vasco 3y ago
What matters is the hand you use your mouse with, I'm left handed for writing and most things but use the right hand for the mouse and it doesn't feel strange.
- arrrg 3y ago
  Why do you use your mouse with the right hand? I’m also left handed and use the mouse with my right hand, I think mostly because my parents bought a computer table with our first computer that had the spot for the mouse fixed on the right side (keyboard drawer with just enough space for the keyboard alone and below that a little extra drawer to the right to create space for the mousepad and mouse when the keyboard drawer is open). So I had to learn using the computer that way … Seems inconsiderate from my parents, but I think they just didn’t think about that aspect.

Stratoscope 3y ago

It's a bit scary to see that one of the highest-voted answers to this question (188 points) is completely wrong. It says that the (0,0) hotspot simplified the calculations for a cursor position update, because you didn't have to add any (X,Y) offset. https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/52349/43259 https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/52349/43259 The problem with this idea is that the arrow pointer was never the only cursor. On the first Macintosh, there were many others including the text I-beam and a couple of kinds of crosshairs. And you could define any cursor of your own by providing a bitmap and transparency mask and the hotspot position. You can see some of these cursors in the original Inside Macintosh Volume I and also in previous works from PARC. https://web.archive.org/web/20230114223619/https://vintageapple.org/inside_o/pdf/Inside_Macintosh_Volume_I_1985.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20230114223619/https://vintageap... Page 50 of the PDF (page I-38 of the document) shows some sample cursors. Page 158 of the PDF (page I-146 of the document) has the pixel detail and hotspot locations for several cursors. Fun fact! The hotspot for the arrow cursor was not (0,0) but was (1,1). Can anyone explain why? I think I used to know, but it has long since escaped my memory and I would appreciate a refresher. This page also has the definition of the Cursor structure: TYPE Bits16 = Array[0..15] OF INTEGER; Cursor = RECORD data: Bits16; {cursor image} mask: Bits16; {cursor mask} hotSpot: Point; {point aligned with mouse} END; Point is defined on page I-139 and is more or less what you would expect, a pair of vertical and horizontal coordinates. To be clear, the scary part is not that someone came up with the idea that (0,0) saved a few instructions. In fact, the notion came up elsewhere in this HN discussion. It's a perfectly reasonable hypothesis, until you realize that there are many cursor shapes that require different hotspots. The scary part is that 188 people upvoted this answer!

zb 3y ago
The arrow has a white outline around it, so the hotspot is at the tip of the black arrow, at (1,1).
- reddalo 3y ago
  And if I'm not wrong, it still applies to today's Mac interface. The cursor still has a white outline all around.

wodenokoto 3y ago

Top answer [1] (when I'm looking, others seems to refer to other top answers) says that the original cursor _was_ straight, and links to an image, which 404's [2]. Anyone have a working link? [1] https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/52338 https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/52338 [2] http://origin.arstechnica.com/images/gui/4-NLSgui.jpg http://origin.arstechnica.com/images/gui/4-NLSgui.jpg

AndroTux 3y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20190628045230/http://origin.arstechnica.com/images/gui/4-NLSgui.jpg https://web.archive.org/web/20190628045230/http://origin.ars...
deleted 3y ago
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stkdump 3y ago

Another reason is likely clipping. When drawing the cursor you have to prevent pixels from being drawn off screen to the right or bottom of the screen. If the cursor were symmetric, you would have to watch out for the left edge of the screen as well.

LAC-Tech 3y ago

I feel the need to immediately change to an upward pointing cursor to honour Douglas Engelbart.

anileated 3y ago

The point of a pointer is that it should stand off against the things it points at. A usual GUI for the most part has straight edges and certain symmetries. A cursor that is similarly symmetric will blend in more easily, and get visually lost. Which way it tilts is secondary, the irregularity of the tilt itself against the rest of the interface is key.

swozey 3y ago
I don't know if it's me getting old or new HDR/5120 res/monitors with crazy white/black levels but I had to recently change my cursor color from white to green because I started losing it on all white screens.
- anileated 3y ago
  macOS has this “shake to enlarge cursor” setting, can be useful occasionally, though I never know what with what intensity do I shake.

deleted 3y ago

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baxuz 3y ago

For a better deep dive into mouse cursors with more information, there's Posy's "Mouse Cursor History (and why I made my own)": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YThelfB2fvg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YThelfB2fvg It also shows how absolutely horrid Windows' cursor designs are. They always were. I still remember making my own sets back in the early 2000s when DeviantArt was the home of desktop customization.

rkagerer 3y ago

I'm surprised nobody has posited an "obscurity" rationale. When the majority of your information is vertical/horizontal (such as text, window elements, etc), an angled cursor makes it easier to interpolate what's underneath. And the arrow shape keeps the bulk of the icon out of the way of your point of interest (compared to, for example, a reticle - although I expect we'd adapt just fine).

mort96 3y ago

There's ... a lot of dubious and unsourced or poorly sourced answers there.

shahzaibmushtaq 3y ago

I agree with all the reasons mentioned ranging from calculating the vertex position - sharp tip of the arrow (x, y) to the pixel issue (low resolution on older machines) to the right-hand pointing direction. For all practical purposes, I observed 2 other things. The first is that English is written left to write. If you ever had the experience of using a different language that starts from right to left, this same arrow feels weird. And the second is a little activity experience. 1. Arrange the 4 files in a square box, 2 up 2 down 2. Notice that as soon as the sharp point of the arrow touches any file boundary, the arrow can select the file by a pixel difference that you can't with a straight arrow (ease of use) 3. It also takes a constant number of operations (best case scenario) compared to the straight arrow where the algorithm has to decide based on the percentage of how much of the straight arrow shape hovers over another file to select

AtNightWeCode 3y ago

My theory. When hovering or clicking on an icon more of the icon is visible with a tilted arrow.

Cockbrand 3y ago

I'd like to add to all of the reasons I find valid (not obscuring what one is pointing at, mimicking pointing with a finger) that everything displayed on the screen is pretty much perpendicular to the x or y axis. The tilted cursor thus sticks out among the rest of the content. As an aside, as a typical Amiga quirk, the early Amiga mouse cursor was tilted in a 45° angle to the x axis, contrary to all the other popular GUIs with more acute angles for the cursor. And there was a built-in tool for creating custom mouse cursors, which I personally loved. See for example http://toastytech.com/guis/amiga12.html http://toastytech.com/guis/amiga12.html

bhaak 3y ago
Including setting the hot spot. Similar to the Macintosh mouse pointer the click point was not at (0,0) but at (1,1) (the orange point in the skin colored area in the editor on the linked page).
Findecanor 3y ago
I'd think that the original Amiga arrow pointer could have got its stubby style because hardware sprite could only be in low resolution and 2:1-stepped lines did not look very good. The style was changed to a sharper point in Amiga OS 2.0 but it was still slanted 45°. First on the Amiga 1200/4000 with AGA could you get a high-resolution mouse pointer.
- teo_zero 3y ago
  In Workbench 2.0+ it was slanted 45° with the two sides at 30° and 60°, it was red with a hint of 3D (light at the top-right, dark bottom-left) and was beautiful! It stood out on whatever background.

mike_hock 3y ago

The "saves a calculation" answer sounds like complete horseshit. Any machine fast enough to update a mouse cursor every time the mouse moves could have afforded two additional subtractions on a click event.

zoomablemind 3y ago

My understanding is that before mouse pointer there was a light pen aka light gun pointer. It was used perpendicularly to the screen, literally pointing at the desired location. Then, when implementing a more 'remote' on-screen pointer, the notion of pointing perpendicularly at the site was best projected by a tilted 2D marker. Think of the mouse pointer kinda sticking out of the screen as a dart. I can't imagine the arm strain the users of the light pen had to endure back in time ... Though the workflow was probably still more keyboard-bound. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pen https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pen

codesnik 3y ago

I suppose it makes more sense for left to right text interfaces?

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago

> It was found that, given the low resolution of the screens in those days, drawing a straight line (left edge of arrow) and a line at a 45 degree angle (right edge of arrow) was easier to do and more recognizable than the straight cursor. Ockham's Razor. It really is that simple. Having had to do a lot of "dot art," in The Days of Yore, I understand perfectly, why this choice was made. Some systems did an "unfilled" arrow, with just the outer barbs. Same angle of the shaft, but the barbs were at 90 degrees. Leaning left was chosen, because of the prevalence of righties. The "unfilled" arrow was easier to confuse with the background. I suspect that many of today's programmers would be absolutely aghast, at the resolution of our screens, back then. ResEdit FTW!

crazygringo 3y ago
Yup. The "stairs" of a 45° angle just looked visually smoother than an up-2-over-1 line which looked a bit jaggier. Not an earth-shattering difference, but a difference nonetheless.

sergiotapia 3y ago

look at your right hand right now. how is the mouse oriented? I would be $1000 it's a little to the left, just like your cursor!

quesera 3y ago
You are going to owe left-handed people a lot of money. :)
Izkata 3y ago
Or also the fingers of those of us using a touchpad/nub.

causality0 3y ago

I'm amazed none of the answers are pointing out that a straight cursor is completely non-naturalistic. A cursor tilted to the left resembles an arrow being held in the right hand and being used to point at something.

Izkata 3y ago
3 of them do, 2 with a hand pointing and 1 with people pointing sticks at chalkboards.

amelius 3y ago

I love Izhaki's visual explanation.

londons_explore 3y ago

Were the first mouse pointers graphical? I remember using a black rectangle as a mouse pointer in console based applications - it was literally one character of the console with inverted colors.

kps 3y ago
> Were the first mouse pointers graphical? Yes. Set aside a few hours to watch ‘The Mother of all Demos’.

elif 3y ago

Anyone struggling with the answer didn't grow up on 640x480 resolution. When you have so few pixels, you really want to be able to use the exact pixel you intend.

jturolla 3y ago

I was just going through my regular Sunday morning routine when I opened hn and realized I'm the second most upvoted answer to this question. That was 10 years ago. Is it right? Probably not. Did I answer instinctively? Yes. Is it a problem to keep it there? I don't think so, there are plenty of other explanations in the same page. Am I providing further evidence? No. Please refer to https://xkcd.com/386/ https://xkcd.com/386/

ant6n 3y ago
I guess the obsession to fix something that's wrong on the internet only applies to mistakes by other people, not one's own mistakes. Cuz really, it's the responsibility of other people to fix my mistakes.

akarve 3y ago

Most SO answers were non-answers or word salads. Thankfully one of you added an answer explaining that the cursor is already straight given that it must be visible from the graphics coordinate origin (upper left) and is 45 degrees wide. https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/149837/45927 https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/149837/45927

pavel_lishin 3y ago
Bart Gijssens's answer is neither of those things, and gives an explanation, including the historical rationale, and links to citations.
Izkata 3y ago
...this is using wordplay to avoid answering the question. It doesn't explain anything. Also: > Thankfully one of you We can see your name.

ramesh31 3y ago

It's funny how much of this stuff comes down to just "because that's how someone did it first". I see this mirrored in my own work, where so many arbitrary decisions are maintained for no reason other than that they were chosen at the outset. Nice to see that applies to basically everything.

efitz 3y ago

Although the linked page was highly entertaining, I suspect (and this is pure speculation) that the real answer is that, to the people who had to make the original decisions back in the 70s and early 80s, the current design “looked better”. For subsequent implementations it is likely mostly inertia. Again this is all speculation but it doesn’t really have to be any more complex than that. As a side note in the early 80s as a teenager I wanted to write a space game on my Apple //e computer that had a wedge shaped spacecraft like a star destroyer or the spacecraft from Asteroids. I spent many many hours hand drawing the bitmaps for each size and rotation. The shapes always looked a little jagged, except in the +/- 45 degree orientations.

oq_pmg 3y ago

As someone who played with the DOS text mode fonts a little, I never bothered with that question, assuming left tilt of the arrow was a way to make it visually bigger / more visible

CharlesW 3y ago

None of the Stack Overflow answers mention Alan Kay, who created the angled mouse cursor at PARC. When asked about this¹, he responded: "The Parc mouse cursor appearance was done (actually by me) because in a 16x16 grid of one-bit pixels (what the Alto at Parc used for a cursor) this gives you a nice arrowhead if you have one side of the arrow vertical and the other angled (along with other things there, I designed and made many of the initial bitmap fonts). Then it stuck, as so many things in computing do." ¹ https://jameshk.com/mouse-cursor https://jameshk.com/mouse-cursor

arduanika 3y ago
Nor did they mention Mark Zuckerberg, who is still holding his head up high in the face of negative press: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/03/facebook-meta-silicon-valley-politics/677168/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/03/faceboo... giving the appearance that the mouse is tilted.
- gymbeaux 3y ago
  Hail, Zucker
jasomill 3y ago
To see this mouse cursor in action, go to https://archives.loomcom.com/contraltojs/ https://archives.loomcom.com/contraltojs/ and follow the instructions under "Running Smalltalk 76".

prima-facie 3y ago

What an incredible historical resource that website is. Just look at the original Ethernet spec here: http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/xerox/ethernet/ http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/xerox/ethernet/

jasomill 3y ago
Seconded. Here's the power-on procedure for a UNIVAC I: http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/univac/univac1/UNIVAC1_Maintenance_Manual_Jan58.pdf#page=157 http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/univac/univac1/UNIVAC...