Computer mouse scientific name. History of the appearance and types of computer mice

Good afternoon friends!

Today we will talk about one very convenient device, to which we are so accustomed and without which we can no longer imagine working on a computer.

What is a "mouse"?

A “mouse” is a push-button manipulator designed together with a keyboard for entering information into a computer.

Indeed, he looks like a mouse with a tail. A modern computer is already unthinkable without this thing.

The “mouse” is much more convenient to use than, for example, the built-in manipulator of a laptop.

Therefore, users often disconnect this laptop “pad” and connect the “mouse”.

How does this convenient thing work?

The first designs of manipulators

The first manipulators included a ball that touched two disc rollers.

The outer rim of each disc had perforation. The shafts were located perpendicular to each other.

One shaft was responsible for the X coordinate (horizontal movement), the other for the Y coordinate (vertical movement).

When the manipulator moved along the table, the ball rotated, transmitting torque to the shafts.

If the manipulator was moved in the “right-left” direction, then the shaft responsible for the X coordinate rotated predominantly. The cursor on the monitor screen also moved right-left. If the mouse moved in the “toward or away” direction, the shaft responsible for the Y coordinate rotated primarily. The cursor on the monitor screen moved up and down.

If the manipulator moved in an arbitrary direction, both shafts rotated, and the cursor moved accordingly.

Optical sensors in old mice

Such devices contained two optical sensors - optocouplers. The optocoupler includes an emitter (LED emitting in the IR range) and a receiver (photodiode or phototransistor). The emitter and receiver are located at a close distance from each other.

When the manipulator moves, shafts with disks rigidly attached to them rotate. The perforated edge of the disk periodically crosses the radiation flow from the emitter to the receiver. As a result, the output of the receiver produces a series of pulses, which goes to the controller chip. The faster the mouse moves, the faster the shafts will rotate. The pulse frequency will be higher, and the cursor will move faster across the monitor screen.

Buttons and scroll wheel

Any manipulator has at least two buttons.

Double “clicking” (pressing) on ​​one of them (usually the left one) starts execution of a program or file, clicking on the other one launches a context menu for the corresponding situation.

Devices designed for computer games may have 5-8 buttons.

By clicking on one of them you can fire a grenade launcher at the monster, on the other you can launch a rocket, on the third you can unload a good old hard drive at it.

Modern mice also have a scroll wheel, which is very convenient when viewing a large document. You can view such a document only by rotating the wheel and without using buttons. Some models have two wheels scrolling, while you can view text or a graphic image by moving both up and down and left and right.

Below the scroll wheel there is usually another button. If you view a document by rotating the wheel and simultaneously pressing it, the manipulator driver activates such a mode that the document itself begins to move up the screen. The speed of movement depends on how fast the user rotated the wheel before pressing it.

In this mode, the cursor changes its shape. This makes it even more convenient... In short, get it, cook it, chew it, all that's left to do is swallow it. Pressing the wheel again switches from “auto view” to normal mode.

Optical mice

Subsequently, the manipulator was improved.

The so-called optical “mice” appeared.

Such devices contain emitting Light-emitting diode(usually red), a transparent reflective plastic prism, a light sensor and a control controller.

The LED emits rays that, reflected from the surface, are captured by the sensor.

When the manipulator moves, the flow of received radiation changes, which is captured by the sensor and transmitted to the controller, which generates standard signals for a specific interface. Optical mouse more sensitive to movement and does not require a mat, like the old ball manipulator.

An optical mouse has no rubbing parts (with the exception of the potentiometer, the rotation of which is transmitted from the scroll wheel) that wear out or become dirty. This is also an advantage.

Possible problems with manipulators

The mouse, like any equipment, has a limited service life. It's no secret that the bulk of computer equipment is made in China. The goal of any business is profit, so the Chinese comrades even save on cables for mice, making them as thin as possible.

Therefore, the first weak point of manipulators is the cable.

More often internal break one or more cores occurs at the point where the cable enters the mouse.

The cable has 4 wires, two of them are power, the third is clock frequency, and the fourth is information.

If the mouse is not visible to the computer, the first thing you need to do is “ring” the cable.

If a break is detected, you should cut off part of the cable with the connector (behind the point where the cable enters the mouse body, closer to the connector) and the remaining piece to the printed circuit board of the manipulator, naturally observing the color.

PS/2 Mice Can't switch on the fly .

Otherwise, her controller (her tiny “brain”) may fail. And it’s good if the matter is limited to just this. The PS/2 interface controller on the motherboard may also fail, which is much worse.

If the cable is intact, but the mouse is not recognized by the controller, then most likely its controller has failed and it must be replaced. A cable break in optical mice can also be suspected by the lack of light from the LED (which is located near the surface that moves on the table). In other cases, there may be no light due to a faulty LED or controller, but this is rare.

Manipulators with COM or USB interface Can switch on the fly. However, currently devices with a COM interface are practically not found.

You have to “click” the mouse many thousands of times, and the buttons may fail after prolonged use. To replace the button, you need to disassemble the manipulator and solder another one. It is not necessary to use the same one as it was. The main thing here is to maintain the height in order to maintain the length of the key stroke. However, manipulators have long been quite affordable, and most users do not bother with their repair.

Let’s say “thank you” to the good old “mice” with a ball in their bellies - they served us well...

Concluding the article, we note that there are varieties of manipulators with laser emitter instead of LEDs, which provide more accurate and faster cursor positioning. This speed and accuracy are especially in demand in games.

There are also wireless (radio) “mice” in which information is exchanged with a computer not via a wire, but via a radio channel. Therefore, they contain their own power source - a pair of finger-type galvanic cells of AA or AAA size. Let us remind you once again that the manipulator connector is inserted into one of the ports.

That's all for today.

Victor Geronda was with you.

See you on the blog!

It is generally impossible to imagine a modern computer without this gadget, which greatly simplifies the process of managing a PC. But only a few users know in what year the computer mouse was invented and who its creator is. Let's remember how this gadget appeared, and what it was like from the very beginning.

In what year was the computer mouse invented?

December 9, 1968 - it was on this day that the world saw the prototype of all modern computer mice. Of course, this was just a prototype. However, before this time, there were special computerized radars and manipulators, which became the basis for the creation of a modern mouse.

The very first prototype appeared in the early 50s. Then, according to the Cossacks of the Canadian Navy, computerized radars with the first graphical interface were created. They required a special cursor positioning system, which used a simple device based on a smooth ball. It was called a trackball, and it was the first step towards creating a modern computer mouse.

A little later, in 1951, Douglas Engelbart (the creator) was already thinking about developing a manipulator, and in 1955 he took part in the manufacture of radar systems. In particular, he developed information display systems within the NASA computer program. According to Douglas himself, he and his team created a table with the parameters and capabilities of all modern manipulators at that time, determined their functions and required parameters, which did not yet exist. During research in 1963, the idea was formed to create a display pointer that would move in an X-Y coordinate system.

First prototype

In 1964, based on a design by Douglas Engelbart, Stanford Research Institute graduate student Billy English assembled the first prototype of a computer mouse. At the same time, a program was written to demonstrate its capabilities.

It was a large, square, brown wooden box with a large red button at the very top. The cord was located in the front, but over time it was moved back. So he practically did not interfere. Inside there was a plane displacement sensor, which consisted of two metal disks. They were located perpendicular to each other: one rotated when the device moved to the side, and the other was responsible for moving forward or backward. Given this design, the mouse could not be moved diagonally, it could move forward or backward.

Speaking about the year in which the computer mouse was invented, it is worth clarifying that some people rightly believe that this invention was “born” in 1946. After all, it was in this year that the prototype device for all modern computer gadgets appeared.

First presentation of the mouse

A little later, on December 9, 1968, Douglas Engelbart presented a more advanced modification of this device to a group of engineers. It worked as an oN-Line System OS manipulator. The mouse had three buttons, although Douglas Engelbart himself claimed that he wanted to make 5 buttons (for each finger). And although at first they planned to call the device a “bug,” later the name “mouse” stuck - because of the thick connecting cable, reminiscent of rodent tails.

So, if it is logical to calculate in what year the computer mouse was invented, then we can talk about two dates: 1964 and 1968. In 1970, the inventor received a patent, which recorded the authorship of a manipulator based on the use of two perpendicularly located wheels. However, the principle of the manipulator itself was not patented.

In 1972, this research was actively pursued by Xerox PARC, which significantly improved a similar gadget. In particular, then the disks were replaced with a small ball or rollers. This is how new types of computer mice appeared.

In 1979, Xerox created the Xerox Alto computer, which was a research prototype and was not included in the series. But it was equipped with a computer mouse and had a graphical interface in the form of a desktop. Several thousand of these computers were created.

The appearance of a rubber ball inside the case

In 1979, the Stanford Research Institute (where Engelbart's team worked) sold the mouse project to Apple for $40,000. Having received a license for such an invention, Apple commissioned Hovey-Kelley Design to improve the mouse. As a result, instead of a steel bearing, it received a comfortable rubber ball that rolled freely in the body. The introduction of this innovation made it possible to get rid of the complex system of coding wheels and electrical contacts. Instead, simple optoelectronic converters and wheels with slotted slots were implemented.

Further development

In 1983, a dozen companies were already producing and selling different types of computer mice. That same year, Apple released the Lisa one-button mouse. It was developed for Apple in downtown Palo Alto. Engineers were able to create a cheap modification of this device, making it compact and collapsible. It was possible to remove the ball from the inside and clean it of dust. This mouse was included with the Apple Macintosh home computer.

In 1987, Douglas Engelbart's patent expired and only in 1998 the merits of this inventor were officially recognized. Engelbart himself received the Lemelson-MIT Prize in the amount of $500,000.

Since 1999, optical mice have begun to appear that work on any surface. Many models released after 2000 have survived to this day. Moreover, some of them are successfully used.

Finally

The history of the creation of a computer mouse is short. In about 30 years, it was possible to create a high-tech gadget from a primitive and very expensive device, which is cheap today. As for modern models, they are radically different from the first computer mouse. All that remained from it was the idea of ​​​​positioning the cursor on the graphical interface.

Now you know who invented the computer mouse. In this regard, no one has any doubts. But as for the date of creation, there are 2 opinions:

1. In 1964, a graduate student at the Stanford Research Institute created a prototype of this gadget (based on Engelbart's design).
2. In 1968, Engelbart himself presented a working, improved version of the mouse.

Here, everyone decides for themselves when the first computer mouse appeared. However, it is generally accepted that she first saw the world on December 9, 1968.

A manipulator called “Mouse” has already entered our lives so tightly that we don’t even notice how often we use this device. The mouse allows you to control your computer with maximum comfort. Remove it, and the speed of working with your PC will decrease several times. But the main thing is to choose the right mouse based on the types of tasks that will need to be solved with its help. Some situations will require special types of mice.

Types of computer mice

Based on their design features, there are several types of computer mice: mechanical, optical, laser, trackball, induction, gyroscopic and touch. Each type has its own unique characteristics that allow you to successfully use the mouse in a given situation. So which mice are better for computers? Let's try to understand this issue by examining each type separately in detail.

Mechanical mice

This is the same type with which the history of computer mice began. The design of such a mouse involves the presence of a rubberized ball that slides over the surface. He, in turn, makes special rollers move, which transmit the result of the ball’s movement to special sensors. The sensors send a processed signal to the computer itself, causing the cursor to move on the screen. This is the principle of operation of a mechanical mouse. This outdated device had two or three buttons and did not differ in any special features. Connection to the computer was made using a COM port (in early versions) and a PS/2 connector (in later models).

The weakest point of the mechanical mouse was precisely the ball that “crawled” along the surface. It became dirty very quickly, as a result of which the accuracy of movement decreased. I had to wipe it with alcohol often. In addition, mechanical ball mice categorically refused to glide normally on a bare table. They always needed a special rug. At the moment, such mice are obsolete and are not used anywhere. The most popular manufacturers of mechanical mice at that time were Genius and Microsoft.

Optical mice

The next stage in the evolution of computer mice was the appearance of optical models. The operating principle is radically different from mice equipped with balls. The basis of an optical mouse is a sensor that records mouse movements by taking photographs at high speed (about 1000 pictures per second). The sensor then sends information to the sensors and after appropriate processing, the information enters the computer, causing the cursor to move. Optical mice can contain any number of buttons. From two in regular office models to 14 in serious gaming solutions. Thanks to their technology, optical mice are able to provide highly accurate cursor movement. In addition, they can glide perfectly on any flat surface (except mirrored ones).

Nowadays, optical mice are the most popular among most users. They combine high DPI and an adequate price. Simple optical models are the most cheap mice for computer. They can be very different in shape. By the number of buttons too. Wired and wireless options are also available. If you need high accuracy and reliability, then your choice is a wired optical mouse. The fact is that wireless technologies make the user dependent on batteries and wireless communications, which are not always at the proper level.

Laser mice

These mice are an evolutionary continuation of optical mice. The difference is that a laser is used instead of an LED. At the present stage of development, laser mice are the most accurate and provide the highest DPI value. That is why they are so loved by many gamers. Laser mice don't care what surface they crawl on. They work successfully even on rough surfaces.

With the highest DPI of any mouse, laser models are widely used by gamers. That is why laser manipulators have a wide range of models aimed at game fans. A distinctive feature of this mouse is the presence of a large number of additional programmable buttons. A prerequisite for a good gaming mouse is only a wired connection via USB. Because wireless technology cannot provide adequate accuracy. Gaming laser mice are usually not low in cost. The most expensive mice for computer based on a laser element are produced by Logitech and A4Tech.

Trackball

This device is not at all like a standard computer mouse. At its core, a trackball is a mechanical mouse in reverse. The cursor is controlled using a ball on the top side of the device. But the device’s sensors are still optical. The shape of the trackball does not resemble a classic mouse at all. And you don’t need to move it anywhere in order to move the cursor. The trackball is connected to the computer via USB.

The merits and demerits of a trackball have been debated for quite some time. On the one hand, it reduces the load on the hand and ensures precise cursor movement. On the other hand, it’s a little inconvenient to use the trackball buttons. Such devices are still rare and unfinished.

Induction mice

Induction mice are a logical continuation of wireless devices. However, they lack some properties characteristic of “tailless” models. For example, induction mice can only work on a special pad connected to a computer. You won't be able to move the mouse anywhere from the mousepad. However, there are also advantages. High accuracy and no need to change batteries, since these mice do not have them at all. Induction mice get their energy from the mat.

Such mice are not very common, as they have a high price and are not particularly mobile. On the other hand, these are the most original computer mice. Their originality lies in the absence of batteries.

Gyroscopic mice

These mice don't need to glide across surfaces at all. The gyroscopic sensor, which is the basis of such a mouse, reacts to changes in the position of the device in space. Of course it's convenient. But this method of control requires a fair amount of skill. Naturally, such mice are distinguished by the absence of wires, because with their presence it would be inconvenient to control the mouse.

Like induction models, gyroscopic devices are not widely used due to their high cost.

Touch mouse

Touch mice are the diocese of Apple. It was they who deprived their Magic Mouse of all sorts of buttons and wheels. The basis of this mouse is the touch coating. The mouse is controlled using gestures. The mouse position reading element is an optical sensor.

Touch mice are mainly found in Apple products (iMac). You can also purchase Magic Mouse separately and try connecting it to a regular computer. However, it is unclear how convenient it will be to use such a mouse under Windows OS, considering that it is “tailored” for MacOS.

Conclusion

All that remains is to choose the option that suits you specifically.

In contact with

December 9 is considered the birthday of the computer mouse - it was on this day that almost 50 years ago, in 1968, at a conference on interactive devices in San Francisco, Douglas Engelbart introduced the computer mouse to the public. And all this time, such a manipulator has been and remains the most widespread: even now, in times of widespread proliferation of touchpads, touch screens and voice assistants, the mouse is often an integral part of PCs and laptops. There are, in general, enough reasons for this: there is ease of use (you don’t need to remember all sorts of gestures with 3-4 fingers; the most difficult thing you need to know is double-click), and maximum accuracy (if you want, you can hit the desired pixel on the monitor - doing this on a touchpad, and even more so on a touch screen, is a fantasy). As a result, the mouse does not even think of dying - and although its tail has been lost over time, it, like the VGA with a 3.5 mm audio connector, will exist for a long time (although enough companies want to remove them from the market). But let's start from the very beginning - with the history of the creation of the first mouse.

The history of the computer mouse

In 1961, Engelbart, sitting at a conference on computer graphics (yes, graphics for supercomputers appeared decades earlier than for personal computers), began to think about how to conveniently control graphic elements on a monitor? Without graphics (for text output), the keyboard was enough for the eyes, but it’s not very convenient to control elements scattered across the entire screen (although, in principle, it’s possible even now - the same Windows 10 is quite tolerable, but very slow, controlled only from the keyboard). The idea that came to his mind was extremely simple: in essence, any display is a two-dimensional array of pixels, each of which has its own coordinate on two perpendicular axes (let's call them X and Y). You can have a cursor mark on the screen that allows you to work with an object located on the screen below it. But how to control the cursor? Yes, it’s very simple - we will make two disks, each of which will be responsible for movement along each of the axes. It is not difficult to take data from each disk (the value of Pi can be rounded, it is not particularly important here), and as a result, from two wheels and several sticks with a simple microprocessor, you can get a device that appears in the patent as “XY position indicator for a system with a display” . The patent application itself was filed in 1967, and the patent itself was received only in 1970.

Introduced in 1968, the mouse looked like this:


It looked like something vaguely reminiscent of a modern mouse, although there were three buttons and it weighed like an iron. But in those days, such a device did not take root: firstly, so as not to hamper accuracy, the controller in the mouse had to calculate movements at least a dozen times per second - otherwise it was easy to miss the button (for comparison, modern mice have a frequency polling 125-1000 Hz, that is, 125-1000 times per second). But here the chip itself in the mouse was already giving up: let me remind you that this was the end of the 60s, and the frequencies of microprocessors were not even megahertz, but tens or hundreds of kilohertz. As a result, it was decided to use a trick: it is obvious that we need to receive data once every 100 ms about how far this or that wheel has been spun. In this case, the starting point of each movement is by default the ending point of the previous one. Then why load the controller with calculations like (end coordinate) - (start coordinate) if you can reset the start coordinate to zero each time? In this case, all we have to do is move the cursor on the screen by the number of pixels that corresponds to the coordinate of the end of the movement, and the mouse controller could calculate such data without any problems. Well, the very first coordinate after the system started was taken in the center of the screen - that is why even now, after loading the system, the mouse cursor is in the center of the display.

However, the main problem of the Engelbart mouse was not even this: the wheels could rotate strictly horizontally or vertically, so you could move across the display either vertically or horizontally - there were no diagonal movements. As a result, such a mouse, of course, made it possible to navigate elements on the display faster than a keyboard, but it was still far from comfortable operation.

Bill English was able to correct this annoying drawback, and only 2 years after Engelbart received the patent - in 1972. He, by the way, was Engelbart’s assistant, and suggested that he use a ball drive, which the military had been using since 1952: it was an ordinary bowling ball attached to a complex hardware system, and the rotation of the ball caused the cursor to shift on the screen. Of course, there were no problems with moving the cursor diagonally, but Engelbart recognized this method as ineffective.

As a result, English, annoyed by his boss’s decision, went to work at Xerox, where in 1972 he introduced a working mouse with a ball drive. Deciding that it was inconvenient to control the ball directly, he placed it inside the mouse, and two rollers recorded its rotation along both axes. To determine the angle of rotation of each roller, a contact encoder was initially used (as in the 1952 military scheme) - it was a disk with metal tracks applied to it at equal distances and three contacts pressed to it. When the roller rotated, the disk rotated, and the contact either disappeared or appeared - this made it possible to track in which direction and how much the roller rotated:


The main problem - movement in only two axes - was solved, but a lot of others appeared. Firstly, the ball rolled on the table and quickly collected dirt and dust, which led to contamination and jamming of the rollers. Secondly, the contacts on the encoders quickly oxidized and wore out, which again worsened the accuracy. Well, the main problems were the cost and the fact that there were no graphical interfaces at that time, so the invention was used only within the company, and the first PC with a mouse went on sale only in 1981 (it was a Xerox 8010), and the mouse was there cost 400 dollars (more than 1000 dollars at the current exchange rate). Of course, at such a price the manipulator failed - people were used to working only with a keyboard and did not see the point in graphical interfaces, especially if they needed a manipulator with a price comparable to the cost of the entire PC.

However, Steve Jobs really liked this pointing device, and in 1983 Apple introduced a mouse for its Lisa computer. Knowing full well that even for $100 this product would fail, engineers at Apple did the truly impossible: the price was reduced to just $25! At the same time, alas, we had to sacrifice buttons - there was only one left (and by the way, this is still the case with Apple). The product turned out to be successful, and, coupled with the increasing prevalence of graphical interfaces, mice also began to develop and change - so let's talk about this.

Ball drive with optical encoder

So, the world community decided that a mouse was still needed. But English's mouse had quite a lot of problems, which I wrote about above. The fact that the ball became dirty was not a particular problem - it could be easily taken out, cleaned and taken away. But the fact that the contact encoder failed over time was a significant problem - after all, you couldn’t just replace it, it was the most basic element of the mouse. As a result, it was decided to use an optical encoder. Its essence is that now there were not contacts on the disk, but slots, and opposite them there were photodiodes. Accordingly, when rotating, the light either passed through the slot or did not pass through, which again made it possible to estimate in which direction and how much the roller turned:


Since there was no longer friction, the problem with abrasion and oxidation of contacts went away, and the mouse existed in this form at least until the beginning of the 2000s (and is still used in some places).

First generation optical mice

Many people think that optical mice are an invention of the 21st century. In fact, they are only 10 years older than English’s mouse - the first such mouse appeared in 1982, but was not particularly widespread: the problem was that its operation required a special mat with a grid applied to it - it was from this that the light was reflected from diode and was received by the sensor on the mouse, but tracking movement along the grid was not difficult. The second problem was the high cost - many times higher than that of ball mice, which also worked with almost any surface. However, optical mice also had enough advantages: firstly, it is increased accuracy: if in the case of encoders there were many impulse transmissions (table - wheel - roller - encoder), which greatly reduced the accuracy and reduced the maximum speed of movement of the manipulator, and as a result If clicking on a cross or a link was not particularly difficult, then more precise (or faster) actions were difficult, but in the case of optical mice, the accuracy was already at the level of a couple of pixels, which made it more convenient to work with graphics. Well, besides, optical mice were still more reliable - there was no need to clean anything, and there was less chance of breakdown, since there were no mechanical elements.

Optical mice with matrix sensor

Here we come to the present: if you go to any electronics store, then in the cheap segment you will most likely find just such mice (they are distinguished from laser ones by the visible backlight of the sensor, but more on that below). How do these mice work? Yes, it’s very simple: the mouse has an ultra-fast video camera, capable of taking hundreds and thousands of pictures per second, and the microcontroller, comparing them, determines the direction and magnitude of the mouse’s displacement. To simplify the camera's operation, contrast lighting is used - usually red. The main advantage in comparison with the first generation of optical mice is that you don’t need a special mat; in theory, such a mouse works on any surface, even glass (although, of course, maximum accuracy is still achieved on mats).

Laser mouse

Well, the most modern and expensive are laser mice. Their principle of operation is similar to optical ones - they still have an ultra-fast video camera, but to illuminate the surface, it is no longer an LED, but a semiconductor laser, and the sensor is configured to capture only its wavelength:


This allows you to achieve even greater accuracy - up to several thousand dpi. In general, such mice are not needed for ordinary users, but gamers appreciate them, because they allow you to “shoot the pixel.”

Induction mouse

Another type of mouse that can be called pseudo-wireless: they do not require a physical connection to a PC, and, unlike conventional wireless mice, do not require batteries - however, a special pad is required for their operation, and the mouse itself is powered by induction (inside The mouse has a coil, and under the influence of an alternating magnetic field from the mouse pad, an electric current appears on this coil). The advantages of such mice are obvious - you get a wireless mouse and no problems when the battery or batteries are discharged. On the other hand, you can only work on a mat, which is also not convenient for everyone.

Gyroscopic mice

In general, it’s clear here - in this case, the manipulator is quite far from ordinary mice, and has a gyroscope inside it, which allows the device to navigate in three-dimensional space. For working in a system where everything is flat, it is generally useless, but for 3D modeling or games it allows you to manipulate objects in space without using the keyboard.

Ergonomic mice

Somewhere since the 90s, mice have not changed much in appearance - they are small rectangular or oval bars with a thickening in the center, on the upper edge there are 1-2 buttons and a wheel - in general, I could not have written this, and so on know what mice look like. However, not so long ago mice began to appear that looked like anything, but not like a mouse - sort of pyramids with buttons on the side:

What is their meaning? The fact is that such a grip is more comfortable and familiar to the human hand, which can help some people avoid pain in the hand when using the mouse for a long time, and also increase accuracy. In reality, of course, everything is individual, but try it for everyone - it’s possible that you will like such an unconventional mouse.

Well, this, in general, is all about the history and design of computer mice: surprisingly, in 50 years humanity has not come up with anything more convenient and simple. It’s possible that everything will change in the future, but for now you can pet your tailed (or tailless) animal on the table and congratulate it on its 49th birthday.