I remember that thing! I got one with a copy of MS Paint! It came on a bunch of 5 1/4 floppies and it took an age to install on my IBM XT with a CGA Screen and a 10MB ( YES MEGABYTE!! ) Hard Drive! Of course it was absolutle crap to use and the Amstrad 1512 with Gem was much nicer - even though the mouse on the Amstrad was made from plastic you find on a Cortina dashboard.

I have to disagree with you there. Their mice are actually quite ergonomic. I mean, just look at it:
http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2005/03/18/icon_mouse2_mar1...

I have to say, I'd much use one of Apple's old one-button mice than this thing. I mean, come on. Green? That's as tacky as, say, an operating system where the menu bar and window borders were blue. Oh wait…

What's with the picture making it appear that the mouse had wires coming out of both ends? I mean, Microsoft might have stuff coming out of both of its ends but I don't think this mouse did.

Leave my parent's genitals out of this.

The Mac mouse came first, was more ergonomic, easier to use, and had a better tutorial. Mac Basics was awesome.

Some things just don't change...

I remember those mice with something less than fondness.

The mouseball was basically a big steel ball bearing, no rubber coating, so it slipped all over the place. Better yet, the encoding wheels (remember those?) used a sliding metal contact that slid across a pattern of contacts to generate the pulses that told the computer the mouse was moving. A little dirt was all it took to disrupt contact and make the mouse stop working (later mice used a photocell and a patterned transparent wheel instead). The thing required CONSTANT cleaning.

Dalziel86 - the Mac mouse did NOT come first. The Microsoft mouse first shipped in 1983; the first Macintosh shipped in early 1984.

UrBear - you need to do your research - MS Bill Boy!

In 1980, Apple asked IDEO to develop a mouse for their radical new computer, the Lisa. Douglas Englebart had invented the computer mouse in the early 1960s as part of his pioneering work on the future of computing. In the 1970s, Xerox PARC further refined the mouse and included it with the Alto and the Star, the forerunners of today's computers. Englebart's mouse was one of a kind; the Xerox PARC mouse was expensive and fragile. The Apple mouse would have to be more reliable but less than 10% of the cost of the earlier version.

Abandoning the expensive mechanism found in the earlier mouse, the design team used two slotted wheels as encoders that turned as the ball rolled. LEDs and phototransistors then read the spinning wheels. A third roller held the ball in place against the encoders while letting it revolve freely.

This improved and cheaper mechanism presented a formidable challenge to the designers: the parts needed to be held with a method that resisted misalignment but which could be easily manufactured and assembled. The key was a plastic "ribcage," a complex molded plastic part that pushed the limits of injection-molding tooling technology.

The team similarly tested and refined the mouse's other key components, from the audible and tactile click of the mouse button to the rubberized coating on the ball. A record turntable spun for days, logging "mouse miles" in order to check the reliability of the electromechanical assembly.

The resulting mouse proved mechanically and economically sound and was changed only slightly when adapted for use on the first Macintosh computer. The basic mechanism design is used in virtually all mechanical mice produced to date.

Yep the Apple mouse came first, which is actually WHY Word came with a mouse.

Word was designed for the Macintosh (and Lisa), but Bill was allowed to port a version to DOS. Since it was made for systems that used a mouse, Microsoft rather than rewriting the whole code made DOS use a mouse too and ported the Apple version in whole over.

Yes, of course the Lisa mouse, the Alto mouse and all the others were out there... but the Macintosh mouse wasn't, since it didn't ship until 1984. Now, if the comment had been about "Apple's mouse" or "the Lisa mouse" I wouldn't have argued the point. If that's splitting hairs, so be it.

Travis, you too? Yeh, hi-five!

Hmm, I regard the mouse to be one of the greatest devices ever concieved.

UrBear - you're splitting hairs

Ah... this, then, would be Microsoft's first poor attempt at copying Apple hardware.

I don't want to hear any more about Xerox where MS is concerned... they weren't looking at Xerox technology when they made Windows, no matter what they say.

Steve made deals with the Xerox bigwigs, and as part of those deals the PARC team was ordered to give up the GUI goods to Apple, not Microsoft.

To make Windows, MS was pirating the Mac prototypes that Apple handed over to them in good faith for software development purposes.

The short version: Apple was GIVEN the basics by Xerox, and then refined it into a usable, cost-effective home system. Microsoft then STOLE the fruits of Apple's labor, setting the trend which has lasted for 24 years.

Here's a pic of the underside (taken from here), showing the steel ball. Cleaning looks easy, if you've got a phillips screwdriver handy. Also, check out the three ball bearings to make it roll across the table smoother.

Looks like both Microsoft and Apple owe a BIG thumbs up to Douglas Englebart for inventing the computer mouse.

Well I think we all owe a BIG thumbs up to Douglas Englebart just for having such a cool name. So versatile. Could just as easily be a NASCAR driver, an astronaut, a porn star, or a supernerd. ENGLEBART, BIOTCHHHHHHHH.

That thing looks sweet. I was looking for a USB to ps2 converter tonight and I found a serial to ps2 converter, I laughed and said to myself what the hell am I ever going to do with that. I just found something.

Douglas Englebart was a country singer with a hit single in 1983 called "I want to roll you on my desk." Went something like:

"I want to push your buttons
with my fingers baby,
First the right one then the left

I want to hold you in my hand
Baby and roll you on my desk
And make that little
ball you've got down there wiggle."

country blows

Actually you're all wrong about who developed the first "Mouse".
Twenty eight thousand years ago on my home planet my father Yodog made one to help my race communicate with "computers". These individuals didn't have a fully developed denatracholia which we use to mentally meld with our technology.

Hmm.... Microsoft mouse out in 1983, Terminator came out in 1984. There's a connection here... Cameron wanted to tell the world that Microsoft would eventually develop killer mouse robots! The first versions give you carpal tunnel, but, in 2020, they're going to cut off your arm!

Yeah I read about that OS story between Apple and MS. Another reason I'm glad I abandoned Windows.

Apple still has only one button on their laptops - 24 years later.

Some things never change. MS got the 2 button thing right the first time!

@Falconfire, fyi, MS Word was created on DOS first and then ported to the Mac a year later.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_word

That would be MS that got it wrong - they couldn't design a user interface to save their lives!

The single button mouse was designed after tests showed that two button devices confused new users.

The single button mouse has never held Mac users back - and they've been able to produce a simpler, cheaper mouse for the last 24 years.

The Xerox PARC Lab mouse came first.

So, what do you think the children of tomorrow will say when old geezers like us blurt out from our wheelchairs: Back in our day, mice had balls.

DrD...
<sarcasm>
You couldn't be more right. Right mouse buttons are so confusing, i mean, i have so many fingers!!! which one should i use??? I prefer to mash all my fingers like an the uncoordinated fatty, that i am.

Not to mention scroll wheels, they're the worst invetion ever! Also, whoever added keys to the keyboard was on crack. The AT keyboard had the best interface ever - who needs more than 84 keys when we only have 26 letters, right?
</sarcasm>

@Dr D...Based on the fact that Apple now produces 2 button mice maybe your statement should read:

"The single button mouse was designed after tests showed that two button devices confused new Apple users."

Maybe Window users are just faster learners.

Apple produced the two button mouse so that people using MS applications on their Intel dual boot OSX/Windows systems could use a single mouse that would drive both Mac and Windows apps.

Of course you can't do that on your PC, so you wouldn't have though of it.

Your apology is accepted.

Inigo Montoya - :crickets:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Micro...

"Apple came up with a list of 189 GUI elements; the judge decided that 179 of these elements had been licensed to Microsoft in the Windows 1.0 agreement, and most of the remaining 10 elements were not copyrightable-either they were unoriginal to Apple, or they were the only possible way of expressing a particular idea."

You'd think after all this time the Apple fanatics would just let it go already. Face it, you lost. Get over it.

I'm pretty sure Microsoft Word wasn't graphical in 1983 and didn't support icons and multiple text windows. It used a variation of Multiplan's text menu bar at the bottom. So the mouse would have only made text selections and menu choices. Still incredibly useful.

Does anyone remember VisiOn? That was the first Windows-Icons-Mouse-Pointer GUI for IBM PC clones, it came out in December 1983 just a few months before the Mac. Amazing technology for its time. But neither VisiOn nor Mac came close to the Lisa that arrived early in 1983. I saw all three in computer stores and computer users would stare blankly at them, assuming they were overpriced toys because you only saw pointers in computer games.

Wow, has DrD become the next jcc123?

I think my dad had one and now it belongs to me :D

Anyone willing to buy an antique buggish product?