We use them every day, whether at work, at home, and even on the go. Their image has become permanently associated to that of desktop computers, although they're widely used with portable computing systems as well. They're also among the most popular computer peripherals out there, but how many of you have ever wondered where and when mice, or mouses (because that's the subject of this article, as you might have already guessed) appeared and how they evolved over the years?

Of course, our elder readers might remember a lot more about the evolution of computer mice than younger people, those who've known nothing but the touchpad and the laser/optical mouse. However, I'm also pretty sure that even they don't know the full details of the evolution of the mouse over the years, from a clunky, non-ergonomic device to modern, wireless peripherals.

The B.X. (Before Xerox) Era

Most people tend to associate the invention of the mouse with Xerox and its research park. In fact, the first functional mouse was actually demonstrated by Douglas Engelbart, a researcher from the Stanford Research Institute, back in 1963. The respective peripheral was far away from what we know today as “mice,” given the fact that it was manufactured from wood and featured two gear-wheels perpendicular to each other, the rotation of each single wheel translating into motion along one of the respective axes.

It's not exactly very clear where the name “mouse” originates, since, apparently, the name came from the fact that the device had a “tail” behind it, connecting it to a computer and a display and was the idea of Bill English, a colleague of Engelbart's and the person who actually built the prototype device.

Engelbart's product was not the first pointing device, though. In fact, it seems that the first such product, the trackball, was invented a lot earlier, namely at some point in 1953, by Tom Cranston, Fred Longstaff and Kenyon Taylor from the Royal Canadian Navy, as part of the secret military project DATAR. The name “trackball” comes from the fact that the respective device actually used a standard Canadian five-pin bowling ball. Just imagine how “easy” using such a product really was.

The “ball mouse” and Xerox

Although it was Engelbart who first developed the mouse, his former colleague, Bill English, was the one who took forward its development. Hence, while working in 1972 for Xerox in its already famous Palo Alto Research Park, English and Jack Hawley refined the design of Engelbart's mouse and added some interesting new features, the most important being the replacement of the two gear-system with a small metal ball, pressed against metallic rollers for tracking the movement. Another important innovation is related to the improvement of the interaction system with the computer, which now does not require anymore an analog-to-digital converter, instead sending digital positional information directly to the computer.

Despite the fact that English's design was quite advanced, it took Xerox around 9 years to actually refine it and streamline the manufacturing process as to allow it to become viable from the point of view of the costs involved.

Hence, in 1981, Xerox started mass-producing a commercial mouse for its 8010 Information System (aka the “Star”), which featured two buttons and ball tracking. However, the fact that the entire Star system sold for over $20,000 made it more or less obsolete, and with it, the mouse as well.



Apple gets into the mouse game

Around the same period, Steve Jobs was also looking for an innovative input system for his forthcoming Apple systems, and considered the mouse to be just it. For this reason, he commissioned design firm Hovey-Kelley to create an inexpensive, mass-producible and quite reliable mouse.

The result made its way to the market in 1983, with Apple's Lisa system. Its key components included the optical encoder wheels, a free-moving tracking ball, and a precision injection-molded inner frame. It also used a squeeze-release DE-9 connector and only one button, which remained one of the most famous trademarks of Apple mice for years to come.

A year later, in 1984, Apple came up with a completely re-designed peripheral, which was to accompany its Macintosh systems in their path to market domination. The system featured a nine pin DE-9 connector with thumb screws to secure the connector in place, but worked pretty much in the same way as its predecessor.

Experimenting with the first optical mouse and the first cordless mouse

Another important research center involved in the development of mouse technology, apart from Xerox's facility, was the Ecole polytechnique federale de Lausanne (EPFL), where the two main figures were Professor Jean-Daniel Nicoud and engineer and watchmaker Andre Guignard. The two collaborated to create a mouse featuring a single hard rubber mouseball and three buttons, which, as we all know only too well, remained the mainstream solution until way into the 1990's.

Over the course of the 1980's, many developments in the field of mice and pointing devices were carried out. For example, back in 1981, Richard Lyon invented the first optical mouse at Xerox PARC, while a year later, Steve Kirsch developed an optical mouse that required a mousepad with a grid printed on it for tracking. In fact, Kirsch was also the first to establish a company to sell optical mice, called Mouse Systems, but its products were still rather expensive and above what mainstream consumers could afford.

1981 also marks the establishment of Logitech in Switzerland, a company that was going to become, over the years, one of the major players in this segment. Its first mouse model, the P4, was designed by the aforementioned professor from EPFL, Jean-Daniel Nicoud, and arrived on the market in 1982. Later on, in 1984, Logitech introduced the world's first cordless mouse, designed to accompany the long-forgotten Metaphor system. Unlike modern wireless mice, this one used IR technology for communicating with a base receiver, a solution that didn't prove to be particularly popular.

Since technology was already developing at a very fast pace, the next year (in 1983), Jack Hawley founded Mouse House and launched the three-button Hawley X063X model, which retailed for around 400 US dollars at the time. The same year, Microsoft shipped its first IBM PC mouse, retailing for $195, a two-button version that initially required a special peripheral card for use but later evolved to support connection through a PC’s serial port.

The second half of the 1980's and early 1990's

Quite a lot of development occurred during the second half of the 1980's, probably one of the most important being the introduction by IBM of the PS/2 operating system and the corresponding mouse interface. In fact, the PS/2 was the standard mouse connectivity interface for a very, very long time, only the advent of USB and of the various wireless connectivity solutions making it slowly disappear (although not completely, since many motherboards still come equipped with such interfaces).

Towards the beginning of the 1990's, Logitech managed to refine its cordless mouse design and came up with RF-based solutions, the first of which was called the Cordless MouseMan and arrived on the market in 1991. Still too expensive for most people to afford, but at least it was a step in the right direction.

In 1993, Honeywell launched an alternate approach to the mouse tracking concept, namely the Opto-Mechanical mouse, which used two small angled discs on its bottom that track movement instead of the ball. While very interesting, this design did not manage to become popular enough.

Let's start scrolling!

Until around the mid-90's, the overall design of computer mice remained pretty much the same, featuring either two or three buttons. However, given the fact that computer technology and operating systems evolved and people felt the need to go faster through their documents, the idea of the scroll wheel appeared.

The first mouse equipped with a scroll wheel was the ProAgio, developed by Mouse Systems back in 1995. Unfortunately, this model went fairly unnoticed, but we can't say the same about Microsoft's scroll-wheel equipped peripheral, which arrived on the market a year later, in 1996.

In fact, Microsoft's IntelliMouse Explorer model was the one that turned scroll-wheels into a must-have for any serious peripheral, with other manufacturers following in MS' footsteps.

Going for USB

Up until the late 1990's, most mice still made good use of the PS/2 interface. However, with the appearance of USB (Universal Serial Bus), peripheral manufacturers have started shifting towards this particular connectivity solution, which proved to be much more versatile than the PS/2 (simply because every motherboard comes equipped with USB ports, but not all feature a PS/2 connector).

Back in 1998, Apple was one of the first companies to use USB for its mice, with the Apple USB Mouse, which, nevertheless, had one big problem: its round shape made it a little bit difficult to use for longer periods of time.

After that, a lot of companies adopted the USB interface and, nowadays, there are very few mice featuring PS/2 connectors out of the box (if any).

The optical mice are here

Optical mice appeared towards the end of the 1990's, in 1999, to be precise, following a development by Agilent Technologies, which created the first optical mouse sensor that works without need for a special pad. The solution was quickly adopted by almost all peripheral manufacturers, including Microsoft, Apple, Logitech, etc.

Going wireless

As various wireless protocols became more and more popular at the beginning of the 21st century, the first mouse models to employ them did so as well. The two main competitors in this field are RF (radio) and Bluetooth technologies, most manufacturers going for either of the two or both solutions.

Laser mice make their appearance

Although some companies had experimented with laser mice before, the first working models were delivered by Sun Microsystems in 1998 and accompanied its Sun SPARCstation series of servers and workstations. Unfortunately, they targeted a pretty restrictive niche segment and, for this reason, they haven't really managed to hit it mainstream.

Nevertheless, 6 years later, in 2004, Logitech's MX1000 mouse (developed in collaboration with Agilent Technologies) hit the shelves, bringing laser into the mainstream. Laser technology provides seriously improved tracking resolutions by replacing the LED light with a laser engine.

However, despite providing more accurate tracking than optical mice, laser-based peripherals are also a bit more expensive, and for this reason, they're mostly targeting the gaming segment, where speed and accuracy are extremely important.

Microsoft's BlueTrack enters the mouse game

In 2008, Microsoft's hardware-oriented division came up with yet another innovation in the field of computer peripherals and tracking technology, namely BlueTrack. This complex solution uses elements from both laser and optical technologies, allowing mice to be used on pretty much any type of surface, as long as it's plane, of course. For the time being, only a handful of models are BlueTrack-enabled, with more likely to follow in the future.






Prospects for the future – are mice going extinct?

In spite of being around for so long, mice might become obsolete, at least as far as the mainstream segment is concerned. The main reason for this situation is the appearance and rapid development of touchscreen technology and touchpads, which enable users to carry out the same functions as the ones previously enabled by mice. Of course, one might find it a bit more difficult to play computer games using his/her fingers, and the same goes for people involved in specialized fields, such as design, engineering, etc. However, for the rest of us, mice could become useless in a couple of years' time. Until then, we're most likely going to see some impressive new peripherals of this type arrive on the market.