-- .-. .-----. .---. ---------------------------------------------------- | |N | | | |Y | O |PINION : MY VIEW ON COMPUTERS AND THE FUTURE -- `-' `-'-'-' `---' ---------------------------------------------------- Three Cheers for the Mouse Gregory Lam April, 1997 IMO497.TXT THE COMPUTER MOUSE must be the next best thing to sliced bread. It was first developed at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Centre) in the late 1970s for Smalltalk, a new kind of platform they called a graphical user interface. The designer called it a mouse because he thought it looked like one. Even then, the little rodent and the GUI have always been inseparable. And why not? A mouse is a great pointing device for romping around graphical interfaces, from MacOS to OS/2 Warp. Even Nintendo Corporation sells a mouse with their SNES Mario Paint cartridge. Unlike cursor keys, one can move the mouse pointer freely and quickly at any angle all over the screen. There have been alternatives - trackballs, trackpoints, touchpads - but none of them have managed to obtain the same ease of use and versatility as the mouse. I remember my first mouse. It came packaged free with the now late-Zsoft PC Paintbrush 1.20 for DOS, which came bundled with our family 286 AT. It was the very first Microsoft Mouse, rather thick and bulky for today's standards. In 1986, a mouse on a PC was a big deal. Who needs a mouse?, industry insiders scoffed at the time. Mice were for wimps. Or artists running Macintoshes. Of course, over time, people realized mice also gave the fine sharpshooting control on action games that a joystick couldn't provide. With Windows 3.0 still four years away, I painted 16 colour artwork and dodged enemy planes in EGA skies. However, for business applications, keyboard hotkeys were all the rage. Desktop publishers like PageMaker and interfaces like Windows changed all that. Today, mice are no longer considered frivolous bells or whistles. They have become essential tools. Mice come in all shapes and sizes, shaped like kidneys or ergonomic soap. There are cordless mice, mice that use diodes instead of a ball to track movement, and designer mouse colours are available. There's the ugly Microsoft Home Mouse that's shaped like a house, and the Logitech Kid Mouse that's shaped like a real mouse (the ears are the buttons, and the tail is the cord). Gravis, the famed Canadian joystick and gamepad manufacturer, once made the Mousestick, a white joystick-shaped mouse. And who can forget the jet black Creative Labs 3D Mouse, that's supposed to let you move in three dimensions. Mice also have more features, especially buttons. While Apple users seem content with their mono-button mice, CAD designers often opt for six or more clickers. In the PC world, two buttons seem to be the norm, given Microsoft's refusal to offer three-button support; it was OS/2 2.1 and Windows 95 that finally made the right mouse button useful. The Keysoft Mouse comes with four buttons and a utility to configure them all to your tastes. Above the rest is the Microsoft Intellimouse, a normal mouse in all aspects except for a small wheel mounted between the two buttons. This wheel allows quick scrolling of documents without the use of clicking scrollbars. However, even the most sophisticated computer mice need loving care. A mouse should be cleaned every few months. A sure symptom is usually irregular onscreen pointer movement, or a clicking sound coming from the mouse when you move it. First of all, wipe clean its exterior. The button area can get quite sweaty and gross, especially if you play games often. A damp cloth with some soap works well. Don't use industrial solvents. Next comes the mousepad. If you don't have one, get one! Mice simply move better on pads, and vendors usually give them out for free. If it's an old pad, it may have discoloured with dead palm skin cells. I usually dust-bust mine, and change mousepads at every other COMDEX. If you're just using your table top, wipe it clean. Now comes the internal cleaning. Open the mouse up and take out the mouseball. You can take off all the grime and dust off it by rolling it in some sticky tape, like packing tape. Second, take a look at the tracking rollers inside the mouse. Dust, sweat and skin accumulate in these rollers as your mouse gets more mileage, and may hamper mouse movement. I'm lazy, so usually I just scrape them with my fingernail. However, here's the REAL way of cleaning super-dirty rollers: dab some rubbing (isospyrol) alcohol one the rollers with a moistened Q-tip to loosen the dirt. Then, using the blunt (as in not sharp) edge of an exacto-knife, scrape clean. Let everything dry off, put everything back together and you're done. I still have that old MS Mouse. The left clicker has been worn down, but it still works. Mice have been around for twenty years. Mice have become synonymous with computing. Strangely enough, some people even steal mouseballs (It makes no sense, since they don't even bounce). Mice have become valuable. Words like "point and click" and "drag and drop" are in our standard vocabulary, and double-clicking has become a part of life. Next Issue: New technologies on the WWW are going to change the way you browse. (C)opyright Gregory Lam, All rights reserved. You are allowed to copy this document sans charge on the condition none of it is altered or used without proper bibliographical references. === G R E G O R Y L A M =================================================== -=Toronto, Ontario=- {~._.~} ("*_*") gregory.lam@ablelink.org ___/|___\_______ ( Y ) ( v ) HoTaMaLe! http://www.geocities ( /-\_____\___/-\) ()~*~:()():~%~() .com/TimesSquare/4818/ ======\_/o--------\_/======(_)-(_)==(_)-(_)=================================