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20 years of the optical mouse

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From the «good riddance, dirt sucking roller ball» department:
Title: 20 Years Ago, Microsoft Changed How We Mouse Forever'
Author: help@slashdot.org
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2019 04:34:00 -0400
Link: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/dc0x6Lj_XB8/20-years-ago-microsoft-changed-how-we-mouse-forever

Gizmodo contributing editor Andrew Liszewski remembers April 14, 1999, "when at
the COMDEX expo in Las Vegas, a now-defunct trade show similar to today's CES,
Microsoft announced its IntelliMouse Explorer: a mouse that traded the dirt
sucking rolling ball for LEDs and a digital camera that could optically track
the mouse's movements with extreme precision." Based on technology developed by
Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft's IntelliMouse Explorer arrived with a price tag
that could be justified by even cash-strapped students like me. Even better,
the underside of the mouse was completely sealed, preventing even the tiniest
speck of dirt from penetrating its insides, and it improved on its predecessors
by working on almost any surface that wasn't too reflective. I remember getting
back to my dorm room and plugging in the Explorer for the first time, wondering
who had a rig fancy enough to use the included PS2 to USB adapter. There were
undoubtedly a few driver installation hiccups along the way, but once Windows
98 was happy, I fired up Photoshop and strapped in for the smoothest mouse
experience I'd ever had. Problem solved. In addition to that game-changing
optical sensor, the IntelliMouse Explorer also introduced a couple of extra
programmable buttons which seemed unnecessary to me at first, but it soon
became an indispensable way to browse the web, letting me quickly jump forward
and back between sites. (Tabs hadn't been invented yet.) It didn't take long
for Microsoft's competitors to follow with optical mice of their own. Apple's
arrived the year after in 2000, and in 2004, Logitech introduced a mouse
powered by lasers. Extra buttons -- lots of them -- would eventually become the
industry norm, and companies would soon find themselves competing with each
other to see who could introduce the most accurate optical tracking technology
to appeal to picky PC gamers. I can count on my fingers the number of times a
technology has thoroughly improved my life -- more often than not they tend to
complicate things as well. (I'm looking at you, iPhone.) But 20 years later,
the IntelliMouse Explorer is an upgrade that changed everything without any
downside.

[image 2][2][image 4][4][image 6][6]

Read more of this story[7] at Slashdot.
[image 8]

Links:
[1]: http://twitter.com/home?status=20+Years+Ago%2C+Microsoft+Changed+How+We+Mouse+Forever'%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F2V0ltye (link)
[2]: https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png (image)
[3]: http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fhardware.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F19%2F04%2F29%2F0347231%2F20-years-ago-microsoft-changed-how-we-mouse-forever%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook (link)
[4]: https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png (image)
[5]: http://plus.google.com/share?url=https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/19/04/29/0347231/20-years-ago-microsoft-changed-how-we-mouse-forever?utm_source=slashdot&utm_medium=googleplus (link)
[6]: https://www.gstatic.com/images/icons/gplus-16.png (image)
[7]: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/19/04/29/0347231/20-years-ago-microsoft-changed-how-we-mouse-forever?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed (link)
[8]: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/dc0x6Lj_XB8 (image)


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Burger? You burger, you brought'er.

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20 years of the optical mouse RS Wood  <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2019-04-29 18:23 -0400
  Re: 20 years of the optical mouse not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2019-04-30 23:08 +0000
    Re: 20 years of the optical mouse Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2019-05-01 03:15 -0300
      Re: 20 years of the optical mouse RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2019-05-02 01:22 +0000
        Re: 20 years of the optical mouse Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2019-05-02 15:53 +0000
  Re: 20 years of the optical mouse Oregonian Haruspex <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2019-05-01 07:25 +0000
    Re: 20 years of the optical mouse RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2019-05-02 01:26 +0000
  Re: 20 years of the optical mouse richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) - 2019-05-01 12:17 +0000
    Re: 20 years of the optical mouse Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> - 2019-05-01 21:05 +0000
      Re: 20 years of the optical mouse Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2019-05-01 21:17 +0000

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