Anyone willing to buy an antique buggish product?

Atunu

Inigo Montoya

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.

skierpage

"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.

Marc

DrD

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

Your apology is accepted.

DrD

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

Maybe Window users are just faster learners.

dink23

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>

Inigo Montoya

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.

FrankenPC

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.

DrD

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

Inigo Montoya

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

kibets

Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy!

LaughingMan

TheBugMan

m3talsyr3n

"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."

Serolf Divad

TheClone

some_dude

PDO

morcheeba

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.

macserv

DrD

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

pratt-stick

UrBear

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.

Falconfire

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.

DrD

UrBear

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.

UrBear

Some things just don't change...

dalziel86

Travis Hudson

jmontes

moksha

daftrok

richardc