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A computer mouse (plural mice, sometimes mouses) is a hand-held
pointing device A pointing device is a human interface device that allows a user to input spatial (i.e., continuous and multi-dimensional) data to a computer. CAD systems and graphical user interfaces (GUI) allow the user to control and provide data to ...
that detects two-dimensional motion relative to a surface. This motion is typically translated into the motion of a pointer on a display, which allows a smooth control of the
graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, ins ...
of a
computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ( computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These prog ...
. The first public demonstration of a mouse controlling a computer system was in 1968. Mice originally used two separate wheels to track movement across a surface: one in the X-dimension and one in the Y. Later, the standard design shifted to utilize a ball rolling on a surface to detect motion. Most modern mice use optical sensors that have no moving parts. Though originally all mice were connected to a computer by a cable, many modern mice are cordless, relying on short-range radio communication with the connected system. In addition to moving a cursor, computer mice have one or more buttons to allow operations such as the selection of a menu item on a display. Mice often also feature other elements, such as touch surfaces and
scroll wheel A scroll wheel is a wheel used for scrolling. The term usually refers to such wheels found on computer mice (where they can also be called a mouse wheel). It is often made of hard plastic with a rubbery surface, centred around an internal rota ...
s, which enable additional control and dimensional input.


Etymology

The earliest known written use of the term ''mouse'' in reference to a computer pointing device is in Bill English's July 1965 publication, "Computer-Aided Display Control", likely originating from its resemblance to the shape and size of a
mouse A mouse ( : mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus' ...
, a
rodent Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are n ...
, with the cord resembling its
tail The tail is the section at the rear end of certain kinds of animals’ bodies; in general, the term refers to a distinct, flexible appendage to the torso. It is the part of the body that corresponds roughly to the sacrum and coccyx in mammal ...
. The popularity of wireless mice without cords makes the resemblance less obvious. According to Roger Bates, a hardware designer under English, the term also came about because the cursor on the screen was for some unknown reason referred to as "CAT" and was seen by the team as if it would be chasing the new desktop device. The plural for the small rodent is always "mice" in modern usage. The plural for a computer mouse is either "mice" or "mouses" according to most dictionaries, with "mice" being more common. The first recorded plural usage is "mice"; the online '' Oxford Dictionaries'' cites a 1984 use, and earlier uses include
J. C. R. Licklider Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider (; March 11, 1915 – June 26, 1990), known simply as J. C. R. or "Lick", was an American psychologistMiller, G. A. (1991), "J. C. R. Licklider, psychologist", ''Journal of the Acoustical Society of Am ...
's "The Computer as a Communication Device" of 1968.


History


Stationary trackballs

The
trackball A trackball is a pointing device consisting of a ball held by a socket containing sensors to detect a rotation of the ball about two axes—like an upside-down ball mouse with an exposed protruding ball. Users roll the ball to position the o ...
, a related pointing device, was invented in 1946 by
Ralph Benjamin Ralph Benjamin (17 November 1922 – 7 May 2019) was a British scientist and electrical engineer. Biography Benjamin was born in Darmstadt, Germany. He attended boarding school in Switzerland from 1937, and was sent to England in 1939 as a ...
as part of a post-
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
-era fire-control
radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, Marine radar, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor v ...
plotting system called the
Comprehensive Display System The Comprehensive Display System (CDS) was a command, control, and coordination system of the British Royal Navy (RN) that worked with the detection/search Type 984 radar. The system was installed on a total of six ships starting in 1957. The U ...
(CDS). Benjamin was then working for the British
Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against Fr ...
Scientific Service. Benjamin's project used analog computers to calculate the future position of target aircraft based on several initial input points provided by a user with a
joystick A joystick, sometimes called a flight stick, is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. A joystick, also known as the control column, is the principal cont ...
. Benjamin felt that a more elegant
input device In computing, an input device is a piece of equipment used to provide data and control signals to an information processing system, such as a computer or information appliance. Examples of input devices include keyboards, mouse, scanners, cameras ...
was needed and invented what they called a "roller ball" for this purpose. The device was patented in 1947, but only a prototype using a metal ball rolling on two rubber-coated wheels was ever built, and the device was kept as a military secret. Another early trackball was built by Kenyon Taylor, a British
electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...
working in collaboration with Tom Cranston and Fred Longstaff. Taylor was part of the original Ferranti Canada, working on the
Royal Canadian Navy The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN; french: Marine royale canadienne, ''MRC'') is the naval force of Canada. The RCN is one of three environmental commands within the Canadian Armed Forces. As of 2021, the RCN operates 12 frigates, four attack subma ...
's DATAR (Digital Automated Tracking and Resolving) system in 1952. DATAR was similar in concept to Benjamin's display. The trackball used four disks to pick up motion, two each for the X and Y directions. Several rollers provided mechanical support. When the ball was rolled, the pickup discs spun and contacts on their outer rim made periodic contact with wires, producing pulses of output with each movement of the ball. By counting the pulses, the physical movement of the ball could be determined. A digital computer calculated the tracks and sent the resulting data to other ships in a task force using
pulse-code modulation Pulse-code modulation (PCM) is a method used to digitally represent sampled analog signals. It is the standard form of digital audio in computers, compact discs, digital telephony and other digital audio applications. In a PCM stream, the ...
radio signals. This trackball used a standard Canadian
five-pin bowling Five-pin bowling is a bowling variant which is played in Canada, where many bowling alleys offer it, either alone or in combination with ten-pin bowling. It was devised around 1909 by Thomas F. Ryan in Toronto, Ontario, at his Toronto Bowling Cl ...
ball. It was not patented, since it was a secret military project.


Engelbart's first "mouse"

Douglas Engelbart Douglas Carl Engelbart (January 30, 1925 – July 2, 2013) was an American engineer and inventor, and an early computer and Internet pioneer. He is best known for his work on founding the field of human–computer interaction, particularl ...
of the Stanford Research Institute (now
SRI International SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic ...
) has been credited in published books by Thierry Bardini, Paul Ceruzzi,
Howard Rheingold Howard Rheingold (born 1947) is an American critic, writer, and teacher, known for his specialties on the cultural, social and political implications of modern communication media such as the Internet, mobile telephony and virtual communities ( ...
, and several others as the inventor of the computer mouse. Engelbart was also recognized as such in various obituary titles after his death in July 2013. By 1963, Engelbart had already established a research lab at SRI, the
Augmentation Research Center SRI International's Augmentation Research Center (ARC) was founded in the 1960s by electrical engineer Douglas Engelbart to develop and experiment with new tools and techniques for collaboration and information processing. The main product to co ...
(ARC), to pursue his objective of developing both hardware and software computer technology to "augment" human intelligence. That November, while attending a conference on computer graphics in
Reno, Nevada Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border, about north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". Known for its casino and tourism industry, Reno is th ...
, Engelbart began to ponder how to adapt the underlying principles of the planimeter to inputting X- and Y-coordinate data. On 14 November 1963, he first recorded his thoughts in his personal notebook about something he initially called a " bug", which in a "3-point" form could have a "drop point and 2 orthogonal wheels". He wrote that the "bug" would be "easier" and "more natural" to use, and unlike a stylus, it would stay still when let go, which meant it would be "much better for coordination with the keyboard". In 1964, Bill English joined ARC, where he helped Engelbart build the first mouse prototype. They christened the device the ''mouse'' as early models had a cord attached to the rear part of the device which looked like a tail, and in turn resembled the common
mouse A mouse ( : mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus' ...
. According to Roger Bates, a hardware designer under English, another reason for choosing this name was because the cursor on the screen was also referred to as "CAT" at this time. As noted above, this "mouse" was first mentioned in print in a July 1965 report, on which English was the lead author. On 9 December 1968, Engelbart publicly demonstrated the mouse at what would come to be known as
The Mother of All Demos "The Mother of All Demos" is a name retroactively applied to a landmark computer demonstration, given at the Association for Computing Machinery / Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (ACM/IEEE)—Computer Society's Fall Joint Compu ...
. Engelbart never received any royalties for it, as his employer SRI held the patent, which expired before the mouse became widely used in personal computers. In any event, the invention of the mouse was just a small part of Engelbart's much larger project of augmenting human intellect. Several other experimental pointing-devices developed for Engelbart's oN-Line System ( NLS) exploited different body movements – for example, head-mounted devices attached to the chin or nose – but ultimately the mouse won out because of its speed and convenience. The first mouse, a bulky device (pictured) used two
potentiometer A potentiometer is a three-terminal resistor with a sliding or rotating contact that forms an adjustable voltage divider. If only two terminals are used, one end and the wiper, it acts as a variable resistor or rheostat. The measuring instrum ...
s perpendicular to each other and connected to wheels: the rotation of each wheel translated into motion along one axis. At the time of the "Mother of All Demos", Engelbart's group had been using their second generation, 3-button mouse for about a year.


First rolling-ball mouse

On 2 October 1968, three years after Engelbart's prototype but more than two months before his public demo, a mouse device named ' (German for "rolling ball control") was shown in a sales brochure by the German company
AEG Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft AG (AEG; ) was a German producer of electrical equipment founded in Berlin as the ''Deutsche Edison-Gesellschaft für angewandte Elektricität'' in 1883 by Emil Rathenau. During the Second World War, ...
- Telefunken as an optional input device for the SIG 100 vector graphics terminal, part of the system around their process computer TR 86 and the main frame. Based on an even earlier trackball device, the mouse device had been developed by the company since 1966 in what had been a parallel and independent discovery. As the name suggests and unlike Engelbart's mouse, the Telefunken model already had a ball (diameter 40 mm, weight 40 g) and two mechanical 4-bit rotational position transducers with
Gray code The reflected binary code (RBC), also known as reflected binary (RB) or Gray code after Frank Gray, is an ordering of the binary numeral system such that two successive values differ in only one bit (binary digit). For example, the representa ...
-like states, allowing easy movement in any direction. The bits remained stable for at least two successive states to relax debouncing requirements. This arrangement was chosen so that the data could also be transmitted to the TR 86 front end process computer and over longer distance telex lines with c. 50 
baud In telecommunication and electronics, baud (; symbol: Bd) is a common unit of measurement of symbol rate, which is one of the components that determine the speed of communication over a data channel. It is the unit for symbol rate or modulat ...
. Weighing 465 g, the device with a total height of about 7 cm came in a c. 12 cm diameter hemispherical injection-molded thermoplastic casing featuring one central push button. As noted above, the device was based on an earlier trackball-like device (also named ') that was embedded into radar flight control desks. This trackball had been originally developed by a team led by at Telefunken for the German ' (Federal Air Traffic Control). It was part of the corresponding work station system SAP 300 and the terminal SIG 3001, which had been designed and developed since 1963. Development for the TR 440 main frame began in 1965. This led to the development of the TR 86 process computer system with its SIG 100-86 terminal. Inspired by a discussion with a university customer, Mallebrein came up with the idea of "reversing" the existing trackball into a moveable mouse-like device in 1966, so that customers did not have to be bothered with mounting holes for the earlier trackball device. The device was finished in early 1968, and together with light pens and
trackball A trackball is a pointing device consisting of a ball held by a socket containing sensors to detect a rotation of the ball about two axes—like an upside-down ball mouse with an exposed protruding ball. Users roll the ball to position the o ...
s, it was commercially offered as an optional input device for their system starting later that year. Not all customers opted to buy the device, which added costs of per piece to the already up to 20-million DM deal for the main frame, of which only a total of 46 systems were sold or leased. They were installed at more than 20 German universities including
RWTH Aachen RWTH Aachen University (), also known as North Rhine-Westphalia Technical University of Aachen, Rhine-Westphalia Technical University of Aachen, Technical University of Aachen, University of Aachen, or ''Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hoch ...
,
Technical University Berlin The Technical University of Berlin (official name both in English and german: link=no, Technische Universität Berlin, also known as TU Berlin and Berlin Institute of Technology) is a public research university located in Berlin, Germany. It wa ...
,
University of Stuttgart The University of Stuttgart (german: Universität Stuttgart) is a leading research university located in Stuttgart, Germany. It was founded in 1829 and is organized into 10 faculties. It is one of the oldest technical universities in Germany wi ...
and
Konstanz Konstanz (, , locally: ; also written as Constance in English) is a university city with approximately 83,000 inhabitants located at the western end of Lake Constance in the south of Germany. The city houses the University of Konstanz and was t ...
. Several mice installed at the
Leibniz Supercomputing Centre The Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ) (german: Leibniz-Rechenzentrum) is a supercomputing centre on the Campus Garching near Munich, operated by the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities The Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities ...
in Munich in 1972 are well preserved in a museum, two others survived in a museum at Stuttgart university, two in Hamburg, the one from Aachen at the
Computer History Museum The Computer History Museum (CHM) is a museum of computer history, located in Mountain View, California. The museum presents stories and artifacts of Silicon Valley and the information age, and explores the computing revolution and its impact o ...
in the US, and yet another sample was recently donated to the Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum (HNF) in Paderborn. Anecdotal reports claim that Telefunken's attempt to patent the device was rejected by the German Patent Office due to lack of inventiveness. For the air traffic control system, the Mallebrein team had already developed a precursor to
touch screen A touchscreen or touch screen is the assembly of both an input ('touch panel') and output ('display') device. The touch panel is normally layered on the top of an electronic visual display of an information processing system. The display is ofte ...
s in form of an ultrasonic-curtain-based pointing device in front of the display. In 1970, they developed a device named " Touchinput-" ("touch input facility") based on a conductively coated glass screen.


First mice on personal computers and workstations

The Xerox Alto was one of the first computers designed for individual use in 1973 and is regarded as the first modern computer to use a mouse. Inspired by PARC's Alto, the Lilith, a computer which had been developed by a team around Niklaus Wirth at ETH Zürich between 1978 and 1980, provided a mouse as well. The third marketed version of an integrated mouse shipped as a part of a computer and intended for personal computer navigation came with the Xerox 8010 Star in 1981. By 1982, the Xerox 8010 was probably the best-known computer with a mouse. The Sun-1 also came with a mouse, and the forthcoming
Apple Lisa Lisa is a desktop computer developed by Apple, released on January 19, 1983. It is one of the first personal computers to present a graphical user interface (GUI) in a machine aimed at individual business users. Its development began in 1978. ...
was rumored to use one, but the peripheral remained obscure; Jack Hawley of The Mouse House reported that one buyer for a large organization believed at first that his company sold lab mice. Hawley, who manufactured mice for Xerox, stated that "Practically, I have the market all to myself right now"; a Hawley mouse cost $415. In 1982,
Logitech Logitech International S.A. ( ; often shortened to Logi) is a Swiss multinational manufacturer of computer peripherals and software, with headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, and Newark, California. The company has offices throughout Europe ...
introduced the P4 Mouse at the Comdex trade show in Las Vegas, its first hardware mouse. That same year
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
made the decision to make the
MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few o ...
program
Microsoft Word Microsoft Word is a word processor, word processing software developed by Microsoft. It was first released on October 25, 1983, under the name ''Multi-Tool Word'' for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other pla ...
mouse-compatible, and developed the first PC-compatible mouse. Microsoft's mouse shipped in 1983, thus beginning the Microsoft Hardware division of the company. However, the mouse remained relatively obscure until the appearance of the
Macintosh 128K The Apple Macintosh—later rebranded as the Macintosh 128K—is the original Apple Macintosh personal computer. It played a pivotal role in establishing desktop publishing as a general office function. The motherboard, a CRT monitor, and a fl ...
(which included an updated version of the single-button Lisa Mouse) in 1984, and of the
Amiga 1000 The Commodore Amiga 1000, also known as the A1000, is the first personal computer released by Commodore International in the Amiga line. It combines the 16/32-bit Motorola 68000 CPU which was powerful by 1985 standards with one of the most adv ...
and the
Atari ST The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first per ...
in 1985.


Operation

A mouse typically controls the motion of a pointer in two dimensions in a graphical user interface (GUI). The mouse turns movements of the hand backward and forward, left and right into equivalent electronic signals that in turn are used to move the pointer. The relative movements of the mouse on the surface are applied to the position of the pointer on the screen, which signals the point where actions of the user take place, so hand movements are replicated by the pointer. Clicking or pointing (stopping movement while the cursor is within the bounds of an area) can select files, programs or actions from a list of names, or (in graphical interfaces) through small images called "icons" and other elements. For example, a text file might be represented by a picture of a paper notebook and clicking while the cursor points at this icon might cause a text editing program to open the file in a window. Different ways of operating the mouse cause specific things to happen in the GUI: * Point: stop the motion of the pointer while it is inside the boundaries of what the user wants to interact with. This act of pointing is what the " pointer" and "pointing device" are named after. In web design lingo, pointing is referred to as "hovering." This usage spread to web programing and Android programming, and is now found in many contexts. * Click: pressing and releasing a button. ** (left)
Single-click Point and click are the actions of a computer user moving a pointer to a certain location on a screen (''pointing'') and then pressing a button on a mouse, usually the left button (''click''), or other pointing device. An example of point and cli ...
: clicking the main button. ** (left)
Double-click A double-click is the act of pressing a computer mouse button twice quickly without moving the mouse. Double-clicking allows two different actions to be associated with the same mouse button. It was developed by Bill Atkinson of Apple Computer (n ...
: clicking the button two times in quick succession counts as a different gesture than two separate single clicks. ** (left) Triple-click: clicking the button three times in quick succession counts as a different gesture than three separate single clicks. Triple clicks are far less common in traditional navigation. **
Right-click A context menu (also called contextual, shortcut, and pop up or pop-up menu) is a menu in a graphical user interface (GUI) that appears upon user interaction, such as a right-click mouse operation. A context menu offers a limited set of choice ...
: clicking the secondary button. In modern applications, this frequently opens a context menu. ** Middle-click: clicking the tertiary button. * Drag: pressing and holding a button, and moving the mouse before releasing the button. This is frequently used to move or copy files or other objects via drag and drop; other uses include selecting text and drawing in graphics applications. * Mouse button chording or chord clicking: ** Clicking with more than one button simultaneously. ** Clicking while simultaneously typing a letter on the keyboard. ** Clicking and rolling the mouse wheel simultaneously. * Clicking while holding down a modifier key. * Moving the pointer a long distance: When a practical limit of mouse movement is reached, one lifts up the mouse, brings it to the opposite edge of the working area while it is held above the surface, and then lowers it back onto the working surface. This is often not necessary, because acceleration software detects fast movement, and moves the pointer significantly faster in proportion than for slow mouse motion. * Multi-touch: this method is similar to a multi-touch touchpad on a laptop with support for tap input for multiple fingers, the most famous example being the Apple Magic Mouse.


Gestures

Users can also employ mice ''gesturally'', meaning that a stylized motion of the mouse cursor itself, called a "
gesture A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication or non-vocal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate particular messages, either in place of, or in conjunction with, speech. Gestures include movement of the hands, face, or ...
", can issue a command or map to a specific action. For example, in a drawing program, moving the mouse in a rapid "x" motion over a shape might delete the shape. Gestural interfaces occur more rarely than plain pointing-and-clicking, and people often find them more difficult to use because they require finer motor control from the user. However, a few gestural conventions have become widespread, including the drag and drop gesture, in which: # The user presses the mouse button while the mouse cursor points at an interface object # The user moves the cursor to a different location while holding the button down # The user releases the mouse button For example, a user might drag-and-drop a picture representing a file onto a picture of a
trash can A waste container, also known as a dustbin, garbage can, and trash can is a type of container that is usually made out of metal or plastic. The words "rubbish", "basket" and "bin" are more common in British English usage; "trash" and "can" a ...
, thus instructing the system to delete the file. Standard semantic gestures include: * Crossing-based goal * Drag and drop *
Menu In a restaurant, the menu is a list of food and beverages offered to customers and the prices. A menu may be à la carte – which presents a list of options from which customers choose – or table d'hôte, in which case a pre-established seque ...
traversal * Pointing *
Mouseover In computing, a mouseover, or hover box is a graphical control element that is activated when the user moves or hovers the pointer over a trigger area, usually with a mouse, but also possible with a digital pen. Mouseover control elements are c ...
(pointing or hovering) * Selection


Specific uses

Other uses of the mouse's input occur commonly in special application domains. In interactive three-dimensional graphics, the mouse's motion often translates directly into changes in the virtual objects' or camera's orientation. For example, in the first-person shooter genre of games (see below), players usually employ the mouse to control the direction in which the virtual player's "head" faces: moving the mouse up will cause the player to look up, revealing the view above the player's head. A related function makes an image of an object rotate so that all sides can be examined. 3D design and animation software often modally chord many different combinations to allow objects and cameras to be rotated and moved through space with the few axes of movement mice can detect. When mice have more than one button, the software may assign different functions to each button. Often, the primary (leftmost in a right-handed configuration) button on the mouse will select items, and the secondary (rightmost in a right-handed) button will bring up a menu of alternative actions applicable to that item. For example, on platforms with more than one button, the
Mozilla Mozilla (stylized as moz://a) is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, spreads and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, ...
web browser will follow a link in response to a primary button click, will bring up a contextual menu of alternative actions for that link in response to a secondary-button click, and will often open the link in a new tab or
window A window is an opening in a wall, door, roof, or vehicle that allows the exchange of light and may also allow the passage of sound and sometimes air. Modern windows are usually glazed or covered in some other transparent or translucent mat ...
in response to a click with the tertiary (middle) mouse button.


Types


Mechanical mice

The German company Telefunken published on their early ball mouse on 2 October 1968. Telefunken's mouse was sold as optional equipment for their computer systems. Bill English, builder of Engelbart's original mouse, created a ball mouse in 1972 while working for
Xerox PARC PARC (Palo Alto Research Center; formerly Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. Founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, the company was originally a division of Xero ...
. The ball mouse replaced the external wheels with a single ball that could rotate in any direction. It came as part of the hardware package of the Xerox Alto computer. Perpendicular
chopper wheels Chopper may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Chopper'' (comics), a horror comic book mini-series * ''Chopper'' (film), a 2000 Australian film by and about Mark "Chopper" Read * Chopper (''Judge Dredd''), a character in British comics anth ...
housed inside the mouse's body chopped beams of light on the way to light sensors, thus detecting in their turn the motion of the ball. This variant of the mouse resembled an inverted
trackball A trackball is a pointing device consisting of a ball held by a socket containing sensors to detect a rotation of the ball about two axes—like an upside-down ball mouse with an exposed protruding ball. Users roll the ball to position the o ...
and became the predominant form used with
personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or te ...
s throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The Xerox PARC group also settled on the modern technique of using both hands to type on a full-size keyboard and grabbing the mouse when required. The ball mouse has two freely rotating rollers. These are located 90 degrees apart. One roller detects the forward-backward motion of the mouse and the other the left-right motion. Opposite the two rollers is a third one (white, in the photo, at 45 degrees) that is spring-loaded to push the ball against the other two rollers. Each roller is on the same shaft as an encoder wheel that has slotted edges; the slots interrupt infrared light beams to generate electrical pulses that represent wheel movement. Each wheel's disc has a pair of light beams, located so that a given beam becomes interrupted or again starts to pass light freely when the other beam of the pair is about halfway between changes. Simple logic circuits interpret the relative timing to indicate which direction the wheel is rotating. This incremental rotary encoder scheme is sometimes called quadrature encoding of the wheel rotation, as the two optical sensors produce signals that are in approximately quadrature phase. The mouse sends these signals to the computer system via the mouse cable, directly as logic signals in very old mice such as the Xerox mice, and via a data-formatting IC in modern mice. The driver software in the system converts the signals into motion of the mouse cursor along X and Y axes on the computer screen. The ball is mostly steel, with a precision spherical rubber surface. The weight of the ball, given an appropriate working surface under the mouse, provides a reliable grip so the mouse's movement is transmitted accurately. Ball mice and wheel mice were manufactured for Xerox by Jack Hawley, doing business as The Mouse House in Berkeley, California, starting in 1975. Based on another invention by Jack Hawley, proprietor of the Mouse House,
Honeywell Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building technologies, performance ma ...
produced another type of mechanical mouse. Instead of a ball, it had two wheels rotating at off axes. Key Tronic later produced a similar product. Modern computer mice took form at the
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...
(EPFL) under the inspiration of Professor Jean-Daniel Nicoud and at the hands of
engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considerin ...
and watchmaker André Guignard. This new design incorporated a single hard rubber mouseball and three buttons, and remained a common design until the mainstream adoption of the scroll-wheel mouse during the 1990s. In 1985, René Sommer added a
microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circ ...
to Nicoud's and Guignard's design. Through this innovation, Sommer is credited with inventing a significant component of the mouse, which made it more "intelligent"; though optical mice from Mouse Systems had incorporated microprocessors by 1984. Another type of mechanical mouse, the "analog mouse" (now generally regarded as obsolete), uses
potentiometer A potentiometer is a three-terminal resistor with a sliding or rotating contact that forms an adjustable voltage divider. If only two terminals are used, one end and the wiper, it acts as a variable resistor or rheostat. The measuring instrum ...
s rather than encoder wheels, and is typically designed to be plug compatible with an analog joystick. The "Color Mouse", originally marketed by
RadioShack RadioShack, formerly RadioShack Corporation, is an American retailer founded in 1921. At its peak in 1999, RadioShack operated over 8,000 worldwide stores named RadioShack or Tandy Electronics in the United States, Mexico, United Kingdom, Austra ...
for their Color Computer (but also usable on
MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few o ...
machines equipped with analog joystick ports, provided the software accepted joystick input) was the best-known example.


Optical and laser mice

Early optical mice relied entirely on one or more
light-emitting diode A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor Electronics, device that Light#Light sources, emits light when Electric current, current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy i ...
s (LEDs) and an imaging array of
photodiode A photodiode is a light-sensitive semiconductor diode. It produces current when it absorbs photons. The package of a photodiode allows light (or infrared or ultraviolet radiation, or X-rays) to reach the sensitive part of the device. The packag ...
s to detect movement relative to the underlying surface, eschewing the internal moving parts a mechanical mouse uses in addition to its optics. A laser mouse is an optical mouse that uses coherent (laser) light. The earliest optical mice detected movement on pre-printed mousepad surfaces, whereas the modern LED optical mouse works on most opaque diffuse surfaces; it is usually unable to detect movement on specular surfaces like polished stone. Laser diodes provide good resolution and precision, improving performance on opaque specular surfaces. Later, more surface-independent optical mice use an optoelectronic sensor (essentially, a tiny low-resolution video camera) to take successive images of the surface on which the mouse operates. Battery powered, wireless optical mice flash the LED intermittently to save power, and only glow steadily when movement is detected.


Inertial and gyroscopic mice

Often called "air mice" since they do not require a surface to operate, inertial mice use a tuning fork or other
accelerometer An accelerometer is a tool that measures proper acceleration. Proper acceleration is the acceleration (the rate of change of velocity) of a body in its own instantaneous rest frame; this is different from coordinate acceleration, which is acce ...
(US Patent 4787051) to detect rotary movement for every axis supported. The most common models (manufactured by Logitech and Gyration) work using 2 degrees of rotational freedom and are insensitive to spatial translation. The user requires only small wrist rotations to move the cursor, reducing user fatigue or "
gorilla arm A touchscreen or touch screen is the assembly of both an input ('touch panel') and output ('display') device. The touch panel is normally layered on the top of an electronic visual display of an information processing system. The display is often ...
". Usually cordless, they often have a switch to deactivate the movement circuitry between use, allowing the user freedom of movement without affecting the cursor position. A patent for an inertial mouse claims that such mice consume less power than optically based mice, and offer increased sensitivity, reduced weight and increased ease-of-use. In combination with a wireless keyboard an inertial mouse can offer alternative ergonomic arrangements which do not require a flat work surface, potentially alleviating some types of repetitive motion injuries related to workstation posture.


3D mice

Also known as bats, flying mice, or wands, these devices generally function through
ultrasound Ultrasound is sound waves with frequencies higher than the upper audible limit of human hearing. Ultrasound is not different from "normal" (audible) sound in its physical properties, except that humans cannot hear it. This limit varies ...
and provide at least three
degrees of freedom Degrees of freedom (often abbreviated df or DOF) refers to the number of independent variables or parameters of a thermodynamic system. In various scientific fields, the word "freedom" is used to describe the limits to which physical movement or ...
. Probably the best known example would be
3Dconnexion 3Dconnexion is a German manufacturer of human interface devices for manipulating and navigating computer-generated 3D imagery. These devices are often referred to as 3D motion controllers, 3D navigation devices, 6DOF devices (six degrees of ...
("
Logitech Logitech International S.A. ( ; often shortened to Logi) is a Swiss multinational manufacturer of computer peripherals and software, with headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, and Newark, California. The company has offices throughout Europe ...
's SpaceMouse") from the early 1990s. In the late 1990s Kantek introduced the 3D RingMouse. This wireless mouse was worn on a ring around a finger, which enabled the thumb to access three buttons. The mouse was tracked in three dimensions by a base station. Despite a certain appeal, it was finally discontinued because it did not provide sufficient resolution. One example of a 2000s consumer 3D pointing device is the Wii Remote. While primarily a motion-sensing device (that is, it can determine its orientation and direction of movement), Wii Remote can also detect its spatial position by comparing the distance and position of the lights from the IR emitter using its integrated IR camera (since the nunchuk accessory lacks a camera, it can only tell its current heading and orientation). The obvious drawback to this approach is that it can only produce spatial coordinates while its camera can see the sensor bar. More accurate consumer devices have since been released, including the PlayStation Move, the
Razer Hydra The Razer Hydra (previously known as Sixense TrueMotion) is a motion and orientation detection game controller developed by Sixense Entertainment, a company founded in 2007, in partnership with Razer USA. It uses a weak magnetic field to detect ...
, and the controllers part of the
HTC Vive VIVE, sometimes referred to as HTC Vive, is a virtual reality brand of HTC Corporation. It consists of hardware like its titular virtual reality headsets and accessories, virtual reality software and services, and initiatives that promote appl ...
virtual reality system. All of these devices can accurately detect position and orientation in 3D space regardless of angle relative to the sensor station. A mouse-related controller called the SpaceBall has a ball placed above the work surface that can easily be gripped. With spring-loaded centering, it sends both translational as well as angular displacements on all six axes, in both directions for each. In November 2010 a German Company called Axsotic introduced a new concept of 3D mouse called 3D Spheric Mouse. This new concept of a true six degree-of-freedom input device uses a ball to rotate in 3 axes and an elastic polymer anchored tetrahedron inspired suspension for translating the ball without any limitations. A contactless sensor design uses a magnetic sensor array for sensing three aches translation and two optical mouse sensors for three aches rotation. The special tetrahedron suspension allows a user to rotate the ball with the fingers while input translations with the hand-wrist motion. File:Logitech spacemouse 3D-IMG 8429-black.jpg, Logitech spacemouse 3D. On display at the Bolo Computer Museum, EPFL, Lausanne File:Silicon Graphics Ball-IMG 4192.jpg, Silicon Graphics SpaceBall model 1003 (1988), allowing manipulation of objects with six degrees of freedom File:Logitech 3D ultrasonice mouse 1990-IMG 7952-gradient.jpg, Logitech 3D Mouse (1990), the first ultrasonic mouse File:Space-Navigator.jpg, A modern six-degrees-of-freedom (6 DOF) 3D mouse (2007) File:Spaceball 4000 FLX - Optical Assembly.JPG, Mechanism of the modern 6 DOF mouse consisting of infrared LEDs and detectors with occluders that move with the ball File:6D (axsotic).jpg, The Axsotic 3D-Spheric-Mouse (6D) is the first 3D-Mouse that separates rotation and translation in finger and hand-wrist movements.


Tactile mice

In 2000,
Logitech Logitech International S.A. ( ; often shortened to Logi) is a Swiss multinational manufacturer of computer peripherals and software, with headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, and Newark, California. The company has offices throughout Europe ...
introduced a "tactile mouse" known as the "iFeel Mouse" developed by Immersion Corporation that contained a small
actuator An actuator is a component of a machine that is responsible for moving and controlling a mechanism or system, for example by opening a valve. In simple terms, it is a "mover". An actuator requires a control device (controlled by control signal) a ...
to enable the mouse to generate simulated physical sensations. Such a mouse can augment user-interfaces with haptic feedback, such as giving feedback when crossing a
window A window is an opening in a wall, door, roof, or vehicle that allows the exchange of light and may also allow the passage of sound and sometimes air. Modern windows are usually glazed or covered in some other transparent or translucent mat ...
boundary. To surf the internet by touch-enabled mouse was first developed in 1996 and first implemented commercially by the Wingman Force Feedback Mouse. It requires the user to be able to feel depth or hardness; this ability was realized with the first electrorheological tactile mice but never marketed.


Pucks

Tablet digitizers are sometimes used with accessories called pucks, devices which rely on absolute positioning, but can be configured for sufficiently mouse-like relative tracking that they are sometimes marketed as mice.


Ergonomic mice

As the name suggests, this type of mouse is intended to provide optimum comfort and avoid injuries such as
carpal tunnel syndrome Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is the collection of symptoms and signs associated with median neuropathy at the carpal tunnel. Most CTS is related to idiopathic compression of the median nerve as it travels through the wrist at the carpal tunn ...
,
arthritis Arthritis is a term often used to mean any disorder that affects joints. Symptoms generally include joint pain and stiffness. Other symptoms may include redness, warmth, swelling, and decreased range of motion of the affected joints. In som ...
, and other
repetitive strain injuries A repetitive strain injury (RSI) is an injury to part of the musculoskeletal or nervous system caused by repetitive use, vibrations, compression or long periods in a fixed position. Other common names include repetitive stress disorders, cumula ...
. It is designed to fit natural hand position and movements, to reduce discomfort. When holding a typical mouse, the
ulna The ulna (''pl''. ulnae or ulnas) is a long bone found in the forearm that stretches from the elbow to the smallest finger, and when in anatomical position, is found on the medial side of the forearm. That is, the ulna is on the same side of t ...
and
radius In classical geometry, a radius (plural, : radii) of a circle or sphere is any of the line segments from its Centre (geometry), center to its perimeter, and in more modern usage, it is also their length. The name comes from the latin ''radius'', ...
bones on the arm are crossed. Some designs attempt to place the palm more vertically, so the bones take more natural parallel position. Some limit wrist movement, encouraging arm movement instead, that may be less precise but more optimal from the health point of view. A mouse may be angled from the thumb downward to the opposite side – this is known to reduce wrist pronation. However such optimizations make the mouse right or left hand specific, making more problematic to change the tired hand. ''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...
'' has criticized manufacturers for offering few or no left-handed ergonomic mice: "Oftentimes I felt like I was dealing with someone who'd never actually met a left-handed person before." Another solution is a pointing bar device. The so-called ''roller bar mouse'' is positioned snugly in front of the keyboard, thus allowing bi-manual accessibility.


Gaming mice

These mice are specifically designed for use in
computer games A personal computer game, also known as a PC game or computer game, is a type of video game played on a personal computer (PC) rather than a video game console or arcade machine. Its defining characteristics include: more diverse and user-dete ...
. They typically employ a wider array of controls and buttons and have designs that differ radically from traditional mice. They may also have decorative monochrome or programmable RGB LED lighting. The additional buttons can often be used for changing the sensitivity of the mouse or they can be assigned (programmed) to macros (i.e., for opening a program or for use instead of a key combination). It is also common for game mice, especially those designed for use in
real-time strategy Real-time strategy (RTS) is a subgenre of strategy video games that do not progress incrementally in turns, but allow all players to play simultaneously, in "real time". By contrast, in turn-based strategy (TBS) games, players take turns to p ...
games such as ''
StarCraft ''StarCraft'' is a military science fiction media franchise created by Chris Metzen and James Phinney and owned by Blizzard Entertainment. The series, set in the beginning of the 26th century, centers on a galactic struggle for dominance a ...
'', or in multiplayer online battle arena games such as
League of Legends ''League of Legends'' (''LoL''), commonly referred to as ''League'', is a 2009 multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Riot Games. Inspired by '' Defense of the Ancients'', a custom map for ''Warcraft III'', ...
to have a relatively high sensitivity, measured in dots per inch (DPI), which can be as high as 25,600. Some advanced mice from gaming manufacturers also allow users to adjust the weight of the mouse by adding or subtracting weights to allow for easier control. Ergonomic quality is also an important factor in gaming mouse, as extended gameplay times may render further use of the mouse to be uncomfortable. Some mice have been designed to have adjustable features such as removable and/or elongated palm rests, horizontally adjustable thumb rests and pinky rests. Some mice may include several different rests with their products to ensure comfort for a wider range of target consumers. Gaming mice are held by
gamer A gamer is a proactive hobbyist who plays interactive games, especially video games, tabletop role-playing games, and skill-based card games, and who plays for usually long periods of time. Some gamers are competitive, meaning they routin ...
s in three styles of grip: # Palm Grip: the hand rests on the mouse, with extended fingers. # Claw Grip: palm rests on the mouse, bent fingers. # Finger-Tip Grip: bent fingers, palm does not touch the mouse.


Connectivity and communication protocols

To transmit their input, typical cabled mice use a thin electrical cord terminating in a standard connector, such as
RS-232 In telecommunications, RS-232 or Recommended Standard 232 is a standard originally introduced in 1960 for serial communication transmission of data. It formally defines signals connecting between a ''DTE'' ('' data terminal equipment'') suc ...
C,
PS/2 The Personal System/2 or PS/2 is IBM's second generation of personal computers. Released in 1987, it officially replaced the IBM PC, XT, AT, and PC Convertible in IBM's lineup. Many of the PS/2's innovations, such as the 16550 UART (serial p ...
, ADB, or USB. Cordless mice instead transmit data via
infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of Light, visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from ...
radiation (see
IrDA The Infrared Data Association (IrDA) is an industry-driven interest group that was founded in 1994 by around 50 companies. IrDA provides specifications for a complete set of protocols for wireless infrared communications, and the name "IrDA" also ...
) or
radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30  hertz (Hz) and 300  gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a tr ...
(including
Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...
), although many such cordless interfaces are themselves connected through the aforementioned wired serial buses. While the electrical interface and the format of the data transmitted by commonly available mice is currently standardized on USB, in the past it varied between different manufacturers. A
bus mouse A bus mouse is a variety of PC computer mouse which is attached to the computer using a specialized interface (originally, the Microsoft InPort interface developed for Microsoft's original mouse product). In the late 1980s, mice were not in ...
used a dedicated interface card for connection to an
IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...
or compatible computer. Mouse use in DOS applications became more common after the introduction of the
Microsoft Mouse The Microsoft Mouse is a computer mouse released by Microsoft in 1983. It is the first mouse released by the company, and it was bundled with Microsoft Word, Notepad, and an on-screen teaching tutorial for an initial price of $195. Nicknamed t ...
, largely because Microsoft provided an open standard for communication between applications and mouse driver software. Thus, any application written to use the Microsoft standard could use a mouse with a driver that implements the same API, even if the mouse hardware itself was incompatible with Microsoft's. This driver provides the state of the buttons and the distance the mouse has moved in units that its documentation calls " mickeys".


Early mice

In the 1970s, the Xerox Alto mouse, and in the 1980s the Xerox
optical mouse An optical mouse is a computer mouse which uses a light source, typically a light-emitting diode (LED), and a light detector, such as an array of photodiodes, to detect movement relative to a surface. Variations of the optical mouse have largely r ...
, used a quadrature-encoded X and Y interface. This two-bit encoding per dimension had the property that only one bit of the two would change at a time, like a
Gray code The reflected binary code (RBC), also known as reflected binary (RB) or Gray code after Frank Gray, is an ordering of the binary numeral system such that two successive values differ in only one bit (binary digit). For example, the representa ...
or
Johnson counter A ring counter is a type of counter composed of flip-flops connected into a shift register, with the output of the last flip-flop fed to the input of the first, making a "circular" or "ring" structure. There are two types of ring counters: * A ...
, so that the transitions would not be misinterpreted when asynchronously sampled. The earliest mass-market mice, such as on the original Macintosh,
Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore International, Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and sign ...
, and
Atari ST The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first per ...
mice used a D-subminiature 9-pin connector to send the quadrature-encoded X and Y axis signals directly, plus one pin per mouse button. The mouse was a simple optomechanical device, and the decoding circuitry was all in the main computer. The DE-9 connectors were designed to be electrically compatible with the joysticks popular on numerous 8-bit systems, such as the
Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness W ...
and the
Atari 2600 The Atari 2600, initially branded as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS) from its release until November 1982, is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977, it popularized microprocesso ...
. Although the ports could be used for both purposes, the signals must be interpreted differently. As a result, plugging a mouse into a joystick port causes the "joystick" to continuously move in some direction, even if the mouse stays still, whereas plugging a joystick into a mouse port causes the "mouse" to only be able to move a single pixel in each direction.


Serial interface and protocol

Because the IBM PC did not have a
quadrature decoder An incremental encoder is a linear or rotary electromechanical device that has two output signals, ''A'' and ''B'', which issue pulses when the device is moved. Together, the ''A'' and ''B'' signals indicate both the occurrence of and direction o ...
built in, early PC mice used the
RS-232 In telecommunications, RS-232 or Recommended Standard 232 is a standard originally introduced in 1960 for serial communication transmission of data. It formally defines signals connecting between a ''DTE'' ('' data terminal equipment'') suc ...
C serial port to communicate encoded mouse movements, as well as provide power to the mouse's circuits. The Mouse Systems Corporation version used a five-byte protocol and supported three buttons. The Microsoft version used a three-byte protocol and supported two buttons. Due to the incompatibility between the two protocols, some manufacturers sold serial mice with a mode switch: "PC" for MSC mode, "MS" for Microsoft mode.


Apple Desktop Bus

In 1986
Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancest ...
first implemented the Apple Desktop Bus allowing the daisy chaining of up to 16 devices, including mice and other devices on the same bus with no configuration whatsoever. Featuring only a single data pin, the bus used a purely polled approach to device communications and survived as the standard on mainstream models (including a number of non-Apple workstations) until 1998 when Apple's iMac line of computers joined the industry-wide switch to using USB. Beginning with the Bronze Keyboard PowerBook G3 in May 1999, Apple dropped the external ADB port in favor of USB, but retained an internal ADB connection in the PowerBook G4 for communication with its built-in keyboard and trackpad until early 2005.


PS/2 interface and protocol

With the arrival of the IBM PS/2 personal-computer series in 1987, IBM introduced the
eponym An eponym is a person, a place, or a thing after whom or which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. The adjectives which are derived from the word eponym include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''. Usage of the word The term ''epon ...
ous PS/2 port for mice and keyboards, which other manufacturers rapidly adopted. The most visible change was the use of a round 6-pin
mini-DIN The mini-DIN connectors are a family of multi-pin electrical connectors used in a variety of applications. Mini-DIN is similar to the larger, older DIN connector. Design Mini-DIN connectors are in diameter and come in seven patterns, wit ...
, in lieu of the former 5-pin MIDI style full sized DIN 41524 connector. In default mode (called ''stream mode'') a PS/2 mouse communicates motion, and the state of each button, by means of 3-byte packets. For any motion, button press or button release event, a PS/2 mouse sends, over a bi-directional serial port, a sequence of three bytes, with the following format: Here, XS and YS represent the sign bits of the movement vectors, XV and YV indicate an overflow in the respective vector component, and LB, MB and RB indicate the status of the left, middle and right mouse buttons (1 = pressed). PS/2 mice also understand several commands for reset and self-test, switching between different operating modes, and changing the resolution of the reported motion vectors. A
Microsoft IntelliMouse IntelliMouse is a series of computer mouse, computer mice from Microsoft. The IntelliMouse series is credited with a number of innovations; Microsoft was among the first mouse vendors to introduce a scroll wheel, an optical mouse, and dedicated au ...
relies on an extension of the PS/2 protocol: the ImPS/2 or IMPS/2 protocol (the abbreviation combines the concepts of "IntelliMouse" and "PS/2"). It initially operates in standard PS/2 format, for
backward compatibility Backward compatibility (sometimes known as backwards compatibility) is a property of an operating system, product, or technology that allows for interoperability with an older legacy system, or with input designed for such a system, especiall ...
. After the host sends a special command sequence, it switches to an extended format in which a fourth byte carries information about wheel movements. The IntelliMouse Explorer works analogously, with the difference that its 4-byte packets also allow for two additional buttons (for a total of five). Mouse vendors also use other extended formats, often without providing public documentation. The Typhoon mouse uses 6-byte packets which can appear as a sequence of two standard 3-byte packets, such that an ordinary PS/2 driver can handle them. For 3-D (or 6-degree-of-freedom) input, vendors have made many extensions both to the hardware and to software. In the late 1990s, Logitech created ultrasound based tracking which gave 3D input to a few millimeters accuracy, which worked well as an input device but failed as a profitable product. In 2008, Motion4U introduced its "OptiBurst" system using IR tracking for use as a Maya (graphics software) plugin.


USB

The industry-standard USB (Universal Serial Bus) protocol and its connector have become widely used for mice; it is among the most popular types.


Cordless or wireless

Cordless or wireless mice transmit data via
radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30  hertz (Hz) and 300  gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a tr ...
. Some mice connect to the computer through
Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...
or
Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio waves ...
, while others use a receiver that plugs into the computer, for example through a USB port. Many mice that use a USB receiver have a storage compartment for it inside the mouse. Some "nano receivers" are designed to be small enough to remain plugged into a laptop during transport, while still being large enough to easily remove. File:Logitech metaphor-P4191183-black.jpg, The
Logitech Logitech International S.A. ( ; often shortened to Logi) is a Swiss multinational manufacturer of computer peripherals and software, with headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, and Newark, California. The company has offices throughout Europe ...
Metaphor, the first wireless mouse (1984). On display at the
Musée Bolo The Musée Bolo or Swiss Museum of Computer Science, Digital Culture and Video Games is a private museum dedicated to the digital revolution. Its exhibition space is located on the site of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in ...
, EPFL File:Microsoft-wireless-mouse.jpg, An older Microsoft wireless mouse made for notebook computers File:Microsoft Bluetooth Mobile Mouse 3600.jpg, Microsoft Bluetooth Mobile Mouse 3600 File:Apple-mouse.jpg, A wireless Apple mouse


Operating system support

MS-DOS and Windows 1.0 support connecting a mouse such as a
Microsoft Mouse The Microsoft Mouse is a computer mouse released by Microsoft in 1983. It is the first mouse released by the company, and it was bundled with Microsoft Word, Notepad, and an on-screen teaching tutorial for an initial price of $195. Nicknamed t ...
via multiple interfaces: BallPoint, Bus (InPort),
Serial port In computing, a serial port is a serial communication interface through which information transfers in or out sequentially one bit at a time. This is in contrast to a parallel port, which communicates multiple bits simultaneously in parallel. ...
or PS/2. Windows 98 added built-in support for USB Human Interface Device class (USB HID), with native vertical scrolling support. Windows 2000 and Windows Me expanded this built-in support to 5-button mice. Windows XP Service Pack 2 introduced a Bluetooth stack, allowing Bluetooth mice to be used without any USB receivers. Windows Vista added native support for horizontal scrolling and standardized wheel movement granularity for finer scrolling.
Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for download via MSDN and TechNet on August 15, 2012, and later to ...
introduced BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) mouse/ HID support.


Multiple-mouse systems

Some systems allow two or more mice to be used at once as input devices. Late-1980s era home computers such as the
Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore International, Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and sign ...
used this to allow computer games with two players interacting on the same computer ( Lemmings and The Settlers for example). The same idea is sometimes used in collaborative software, e.g. to simulate a whiteboard that multiple users can draw on without passing a single mouse around.
Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...
, since
Windows 98 Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. The second operating system in the 9x line, it is the successor to Windows 95, and was released to ...
, has supported multiple simultaneous pointing devices. Because Windows only provides a single screen cursor, using more than one device at the same time requires cooperation of users or applications designed for multiple input devices. Multiple mice are often used in multi-user gaming in addition to specially designed devices that provide several input interfaces. Windows also has full support for multiple input/mouse configurations for multi-user environments. Starting with Windows XP, Microsoft introduced an SDK for developing applications that allow multiple input devices to be used at the same time with independent cursors and independent input points. However, it no longer appears to be available. The introduction of
Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...
and Microsoft Surface (now known as
Microsoft PixelSense Microsoft PixelSense (formerly called Microsoft Surface) was an interactive surface computing platform that allowed one or more people to use and touch real-world objects, and share digital content at the same time. The PixelSense platform consist ...
) introduced a new set of input APIs that were adopted into Windows 7, allowing for 50 points/cursors, all controlled by independent users. The new input points provide traditional mouse input; however, they were designed with other input technologies like touch and image in mind. They inherently offer 3D coordinates along with pressure, size, tilt, angle, mask, and even an image bitmap to see and recognize the input point/object on the screen. As of 2009,
Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, whi ...
distributions and other
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...
s that use X.Org, such as
OpenSolaris OpenSolaris () is a discontinued open-source computer operating system based on Solaris and created by Sun Microsystems. It was also, perhaps confusingly, the name of a project initiated by Sun to build a developer and user community around t ...
and
FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular ...
, support 255 cursors/input points through Multi-Pointer X. However, currently no window managers support Multi-Pointer X leaving it relegated to custom software usage. There have also been propositions of having a single operator use two mice simultaneously as a more sophisticated means of controlling various graphics and multimedia applications.


Buttons

Mouse buttons are microswitches which can be pressed to select or interact with an element of a
graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, ins ...
, producing a distinctive clicking sound. Since around the late 1990s, the three-button scrollmouse has become the de facto standard. Users most commonly employ the second button to invoke a
contextual menu A context menu (also called contextual, shortcut, and pop up or pop-up menu) is a menu in a graphical user interface (GUI) that appears upon user interaction, such as a right-click mouse operation. A context menu offers a limited set of choi ...
in the computer's software user interface, which contains options specifically tailored to the interface element over which the mouse cursor currently sits. By default, the primary mouse button sits located on the left-hand side of the mouse, for the benefit of right-handed users; left-handed users can usually reverse this configuration via software.


Scrolling

Nearly all mice now have an integrated input primarily intended for scrolling on top, usually a single-axis digital wheel or rocker switch which can also be depressed to act as a third button. Though less common, many mice instead have two-axis inputs such as a tiltable wheel,
trackball A trackball is a pointing device consisting of a ball held by a socket containing sensors to detect a rotation of the ball about two axes—like an upside-down ball mouse with an exposed protruding ball. Users roll the ball to position the o ...
, or touchpad. Those with a trackball may be designed to stay stationary, using the trackball instead of moving the mouse.


Speed

Mickeys per second is a unit of measurement for the speed and movement direction of a computer mouse, where direction is often expressed as "horizontal" versus "vertical" mickey count. However, speed can also refer to the ratio between how many pixels the cursor moves on the screen and how far the mouse moves on the mouse pad, which may be expressed as
pixels In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the sm ...
per mickey,
pixels In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the sm ...
per
inch Measuring tape with inches The inch (symbol: in or ″) is a unit of length in the British imperial and the United States customary systems of measurement. It is equal to yard or of a foot. Derived from the Roman uncia ("twelfth ...
, or pixels per centimeter. The computer industry often measures mouse sensitivity in terms of counts per inch (CPI), commonly expressed as dots per inch (DPI)the number of steps the mouse will report when it moves one inch. In early mice, this specification was called pulses per inch (ppi). The mickey originally referred to one of these counts, or one resolvable step of motion. If the default mouse-tracking condition involves moving the cursor by one screen-pixel or dot on-screen per reported step, then the CPI does equate to DPI: dots of cursor motion per inch of mouse motion. The CPI or DPI as reported by manufacturers depends on how they make the mouse; the higher the CPI, the faster the cursor moves with mouse movement. However, software can adjust the mouse sensitivity, making the cursor move faster or slower than its CPI. software can change the speed of the cursor dynamically, taking into account the mouse's absolute speed and the movement from the last stop-point. In most software, an example being the Windows platforms, this setting is named "speed", referring to "cursor precision". However, some operating systems name this setting "acceleration", the typical Apple OS designation. This term is incorrect. Mouse acceleration in most mouse software refers to the change in speed of the cursor over time while the mouse movement is constant. For simple software, when the mouse starts to move, the software will count the number of "counts" or "mickeys" received from the mouse and will move the cursor across the screen by that number of pixels (or multiplied by a rate factor, typically less than 1). The cursor will move slowly on the screen, with good precision. When the movement of the mouse passes the value set for some threshold, the software will start to move the cursor faster, with a greater rate factor. Usually, the user can set the value of the second rate factor by changing the "acceleration" setting. Operating systems sometimes apply acceleration, referred to as "
ballistics Ballistics is the field of mechanics concerned with the launching, flight behaviour and impact effects of projectiles, especially ranged weapon munitions such as bullets, unguided bombs, rockets or the like; the science or art of designing a ...
", to the motion reported by the mouse. For example, versions of
Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for se ...
prior to
Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was release to manufacturing, released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Wind ...
doubled reported values above a configurable threshold, and then optionally doubled them again above a second configurable threshold. These doublings applied separately in the X and Y directions, resulting in very
nonlinear In mathematics and science, a nonlinear system is a system in which the change of the output is not proportional to the change of the input. Nonlinear problems are of interest to engineers, biologists, physicists, mathematicians, and many oth ...
response.


Mousepads

Engelbart's original mouse did not require a mousepad; the mouse had two large wheels which could roll on virtually any surface. However, most subsequent mechanical mice starting with the steel roller ball mouse have required a mousepad for optimal performance. The mousepad, the most common mouse accessory, appears most commonly in conjunction with mechanical mice, because to roll smoothly the ball requires more friction than common desk surfaces usually provide. So-called "hard mousepads" for gamers or optical/laser mice also exist. Most optical and laser mice do not require a pad, the notable exception being early optical mice which relied on a grid on the pad to detect movement (e.g. Mouse Systems). Whether to use a hard or soft mousepad with an optical mouse is largely a matter of personal preference. One exception occurs when the desk surface creates problems for the optical or laser tracking, for example, a transparent or reflective surface, such as glass. Some mice also come with small "pads" attached to the bottom surface, also called mouse feet or mouse skates, that help the user slide the mouse smoothly across surfaces.


In the marketplace

Around 1981, Xerox included mice with its
Xerox Star The Xerox Star workstation, officially named Xerox 8010 Information System, is the first commercial personal computer to incorporate technologies that have since become standard in personal computers, including a bitmapped display, a window-based ...
, based on the mouse used in the 1970s on the Alto computer at
Xerox PARC PARC (Palo Alto Research Center; formerly Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. Founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, the company was originally a division of Xero ...
.
Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, t ...
,
Symbolics Symbolics was a computer manufacturer Symbolics, Inc., and a privately held company that acquired the assets of the former company and continues to sell and maintain the Open Genera Lisp system and the Macsyma computer algebra system.
,
Lisp Machines Lisp machines are general-purpose computers designed to efficiently run Lisp as their main software and programming language, usually via hardware support. They are an example of a high-level language computer architecture, and in a sense, t ...
Inc., and Tektronix also shipped workstations with mice, starting in about 1981. Later, inspired by the Star,
Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...
released the
Apple Lisa Lisa is a desktop computer developed by Apple, released on January 19, 1983. It is one of the first personal computers to present a graphical user interface (GUI) in a machine aimed at individual business users. Its development began in 1978. ...
, which also used a mouse. However, none of these products achieved large-scale success. Only with the release of the
Apple Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software ...
in 1984 did the mouse see widespread use. The Macintosh design, commercially successful and technically influential, led many other vendors to begin producing mice or including them with their other computer products (by 1986,
Atari ST The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first per ...
,
Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore International, Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and sign ...
, Windows 1.0, GEOS for the
Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness W ...
, and the Apple IIGS). The widespread adoption of graphical user interfaces in the software of the 1980s and 1990s made mice all but indispensable for controlling computers. In November 2008,
Logitech Logitech International S.A. ( ; often shortened to Logi) is a Swiss multinational manufacturer of computer peripherals and software, with headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, and Newark, California. The company has offices throughout Europe ...
built their billionth mouse.


Use in games

The device often functions as an interface for PC-based
computer games A personal computer game, also known as a PC game or computer game, is a type of video game played on a personal computer (PC) rather than a video game console or arcade machine. Its defining characteristics include: more diverse and user-dete ...
and sometimes for
video game console A video game console is an electronic device that outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home consoles, which are generally placed in a permanent location connected to ...
s. The
Classic Mac OS Mac OS (originally System Software; retronym: Classic Mac OS) is the series of operating systems developed for the Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and ending with Mac OS 9. ...
Desk Accessory A desk accessory (DA) in computing is a small transient or auxiliary application that can be run concurrently in a desktop environment with any other application on the system. Early examples, such as Sidekick and Macintosh desk accessories, used ...
''Puzzle'' in 1984 was the first game designed specifically for a mouse.


First-person shooters

FPSs naturally lend themselves to separate and simultaneous control of the player's movement and aim, and on computers this has traditionally been achieved with a combination of keyboard and mouse. Players use the X-axis of the mouse for looking (or turning) left and right, and the Y-axis for looking up and down; the keyboard is used for movement and supplemental inputs. Many shooting genre players prefer a mouse over a
gamepad A gamepad is a type of video game controller held in two hands, where the fingers (especially thumbs) are used to provide input. They are typically the main input device for video game consoles. Features Gamepads generally feature a set o ...
analog stick because the wide range of motion offered by a mouse allows for faster and more varied control. Although an analog stick allows the player more granular control, it is poor for certain movements, as the player's input is relayed based on a vector of both the stick's direction and magnitude. Thus, a small but fast movement (known as "flick-shotting") using a gamepad requires the player to quickly move the stick from its rest position to the edge and back again in quick succession, a difficult maneuver. In addition the stick also has a finite magnitude; if the player is currently using the stick to move at a non-zero velocity their ability to increase the rate of movement of the camera is further limited based on the position their displaced stick was already at before executing the maneuver. The effect of this is that a mouse is well suited not only to small, precise movements but also to large, quick movements and immediate, responsive movements; all of which are important in shooter gaming.Chris Klochek and I. Scott MacKenzie (2006).
Performance measures of game controllers in a three-dimensional environment
'. Proceedings of Graphics Interface 2006. pp. 73–79. Canadian Information Processing Society.
This advantage also extends in varying degrees to similar game styles such as
third-person shooter Third-person shooter (TPS) is a subgenre of 3D shooter games in which the gameplay consists primarily of shooting. It is closely related to first-person shooters, but with the player character visible on-screen during play. While 2D shoot 'e ...
s. Some incorrectly ported games or
game engine A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games and generally includes relevant libraries and support programs. The "engine" terminology is similar to the term "software engine" used in the software ...
s have acceleration and interpolation curves which unintentionally produce excessive, irregular, or even negative acceleration when used with a mouse instead of their native platform's non-mouse default input device. Depending on how deeply hardcoded this misbehavior is, internal user patches or external 3rd-party software may be able to fix it. Individual
game engine A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games and generally includes relevant libraries and support programs. The "engine" terminology is similar to the term "software engine" used in the software ...
s will also have their own sensitivities. This often restricts one from taking a game's existing sensitivity, transferring it to another, and acquiring the same 360 rotational measurements. A sensitivity converter is required in order to translate rotational movements properly. Due to their similarity to the
WIMP Wimp, WIMP, or Wimps may refer to: Science and technology * Weakly interacting massive particle, a hypothetical particle of dark matter * WIMP (computing), the "window, icon, menu, pointer" paradigm * WIMP (software bundle), the web stack of Windo ...
desktop metaphor interface for which mice were originally designed, and to their own tabletop game origins, computer strategy games are most commonly played with mice. In particular,
real-time strategy Real-time strategy (RTS) is a subgenre of strategy video games that do not progress incrementally in turns, but allow all players to play simultaneously, in "real time". By contrast, in turn-based strategy (TBS) games, players take turns to p ...
and MOBA games usually require the use of a mouse. The left button usually controls primary fire. If the game supports multiple fire modes, the right button often provides secondary fire from the selected weapon. Games with only a single fire mode will generally map secondary fire to '' aim down the weapon sights''. In some games, the right button may also invoke accessories for a particular weapon, such as allowing access to the scope of a sniper rifle or allowing the mounting of a bayonet or silencer. Players can use a scroll wheel for changing weapons (or for controlling scope-zoom magnification, in older games). On most first person shooter games, programming may also assign more functions to additional buttons on mice with more than three controls. A keyboard usually controls movement (for example, WASD for moving forward, left, backward, and right, respectively) and other functions such as changing posture. Since the mouse serves for aiming, a mouse that tracks movement accurately and with less lag (latency) will give a player an advantage over players with less accurate or slower mice. In some cases the right mouse button may be used to move the player forward, either in lieu of, or in conjunction with the typical WASD configuration. Many games provide players with the option of mapping their own choice of a key or button to a certain control. An early technique of players, circle strafing, saw a player continuously strafing while aiming and shooting at an opponent by walking in circle around the opponent with the opponent at the center of the circle. Players could achieve this by holding down a key for strafing while continuously aiming the mouse toward the opponent. Games using mice for input are so popular that many manufacturers make mice specifically for gaming. Such mice may feature adjustable weights, high-resolution optical or laser components, additional buttons, ergonomic shape, and other features such as adjustable CPI. Mouse Bungees are typically used with gaming mice because it eliminates the annoyance of the cable. Many games, such as first- or third-person shooters, have a setting named "invert mouse" or similar (not to be confused with "button inversion", sometimes performed by left-handed users) which allows the user to look downward by moving the mouse forward and upward by moving the mouse backward (the opposite of non-inverted movement). This control system resembles that of aircraft control sticks, where pulling back causes pitch up and pushing forward causes pitch down; computer
joystick A joystick, sometimes called a flight stick, is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. A joystick, also known as the control column, is the principal cont ...
s also typically emulate this control-configuration. After id Software's commercial hit of ''
Doom Doom is another name for damnation. Doom may also refer to: People * Doom (professional wrestling), the tag team of Ron Simmons and Butch Reed * Daniel Doom (born 1934), Belgian cyclist * Debbie Doom (born 1963), American softball pitcher * ...
'', which did not support vertical aiming, competitor Bungie's ''
Marathon The marathon is a long-distance foot race with a distance of , usually run as a road race, but the distance can be covered on trail routes. The marathon can be completed by running or with a run/walk strategy. There are also wheelchair div ...
'' became the first first-person shooter to support using the mouse to aim up and down. Games using the
Build engine Build Engine is a first-person shooter engine created by Ken Silverman, author of '' Ken's Labyrinth'', for 3D Realms. Like the ''Doom'' engine, the Build Engine represents its world on a two-dimensional grid using closed 2D shapes called secto ...
had an option to invert the Y-axis. The "invert" feature actually made the mouse behave in a manner that users regard as non-inverted (by default, moving mouse forward resulted in looking down). Soon after, id Software released '' Quake'', which introduced the invert feature as users know it.


Home consoles

In 1988, the VTech Socrates educational video game console featured a wireless mouse with an attached mouse pad as an optional controller used for some games. In the early 1990s, the
Super Nintendo Entertainment System The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Eu ...
video game system featured a
mouse A mouse ( : mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus' ...
in addition to its controllers. A mouse was also released for the
Nintendo 64 The (N64) is a home video game console developed by Nintendo. The successor to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, it was released on June 23, 1996, in Japan, on September 29, 1996, in North America, and on March 1, 1997, in Europe and ...
, although it was only released in Japan. The 1992 game ''
Mario Paint is a video game developed by Nintendo and Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1992. It is packaged with the Super NES Mouse peripheral. Gameplay According to the manual, two parts of ...
'' in particular used the mouse's capabilities, as did its Japanese-only successor '' Mario Artist'' on the N64 for its
64DD The is a magnetic floppy disk drive peripheral for the Nintendo 64 game console developed by Nintendo. It was announced in 1995, prior to the Nintendo 64's 1996 launch, and after numerous delays was released in Japan on December 13, 1999. The "6 ...
disk drive peripheral in 1999.
Sega is a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America and Sega Europe, are headquartered in Irvine, California and London, respectively. Its division ...
released official mice for their Genesis/Mega Drive,
Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...
and Dreamcast consoles.
NEC is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network soluti ...
sold official mice for its PC Engine and PC-FX consoles.
Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
released an official mouse product for the
PlayStation is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a di ...
console, included one along with the
Linux for PlayStation 2 Linux for PlayStation 2 (or PS2 Linux) is a kit released by Sony Computer Entertainment in 2002 that allows the PlayStation 2 console to be used as a personal computer. It included a Linux-based operating system, a USB keyboard and mouse, a VGA ...
kit, as well as allowing owners to use virtually any USB mouse with the
PS2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 3 ...
,
PS3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on Novemb ...
, and PS4. Nintendo's
Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, ...
also had this feature implemented in a later software update, and this support was retained on its successor, the
Wii U The Wii U ( ) is a home video game console developed by Nintendo as the successor to the Wii. Released in late 2012, it is the first eighth-generation video game console and competed with Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony's PlayStation 4. ...
. Microsoft's
Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the ...
line of game consoles (which used operaring systems based on modified versions of
Windows NT Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released on July 27, 1993. It is a processor-independent, multiprocessing and multi-user operating system. The first version of Win ...
) also had universal-wide mouse support using USB.


See also

* Computer accessibility *
Footmouse A footmouse (or foot mouse) is a type of computer mouse that gives the users the ability to move the cursor and click the mouse buttons with their feet. It is primarily used by users with disabilities or with high-back or neck problems. It is als ...
* Graphics tablet *
Gesture recognition Gesture recognition is a topic in computer science and language technology with the goal of interpreting human gestures via mathematical algorithms. It is a subdiscipline of computer vision. Gestures can originate from any bodily motion or sta ...
* Human–computer interaction (HCI) * Mouse keys *
Mouse tracking Mouse tracking (also known as cursor tracking) is the use of software to collect users' mouse cursor positions on the computer. This goal is to automatically gather richer information about what people are doing, typically to improve the design of ...
* Optical trackpad *
Pointing stick A pointing stick (or trackpoint, also referred to generically as a nub or nipple) is a small analog stick used as a pointing device typically mounted centrally in a computer keyboard. Like other pointing devices such as mice, touchpads or tr ...
*
Rotational mouse A rotational mouse is a type of computer mouse which attempts to expand traditional mouse functionality. The objective of rotational mice is to facilitate three degrees of freedom (3DOF Six degrees of freedom (6DOF) refers to the six mechani ...


Notes


References


Further reading

* (11 pages) (NB. This is based on an earlier German article published in 1996 in ''Lab. Jahrbuch 1995/1996 für Künste und Apparate'' (350 pages) by Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln mit dem Verein der Freunde der Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln; in Cologne, Germany. .) *


External links


Doug Engelbart Institute mouse resources page
includes stories and links * The vide
segment
of
The Mother of All Demos "The Mother of All Demos" is a name retroactively applied to a landmark computer demonstration, given at the Association for Computing Machinery / Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (ACM/IEEE)—Computer Society's Fall Joint Compu ...
with Doug Engelbart showing the device from 1968 {{Authority control American inventions Computing input devices History of human–computer interaction Pointing devices Video game control methods Computer-related introductions in 1964