17 Surprisingly Interesting Computer Mouse Facts You Need To Know

The first-ever computer mouse was invented by Douglas Engelbart.

The first prototype was made of a box with two wheels at the bottom. It was rocked and tilted to make vertical and horizontal straight lines.

The computer mouse has significantly evolved from that and today we can see many different types of computer mouse starting from the basic wired mouse, to roller bar or a gaming mouse.

They not only help in selecting, opening, or closing an object on the computer today, but also help with many complex functions related to drawing, gaming, and more.

Read on to know more facts about computer mouses and if you like this article, then also check out what is a computer mouse and different types of computer mouse.

Different Types Of Computer Mouse

A computer mouse is best described as a hand-held device that is a part of a computer that controls the cursor in a graphical user interface for selecting, moving, or pointing to anything and everything on the computer.

Since the invention of the mouse, they have been constantly developed by experts for different reasons. Here are some various types of computer mouse.

A wired mouse is an average and basic computer mouse that you will find in many places. It's attached to a computer with a USB cable and doesn't require a battery or charging multiple times to run.

A wireless mouse is the same as a wired mouse, only that it works without the USB cable. It mainly works either via Bluetooth or with 2.4 GHz wireless. A wireless mouse runs on batteries, so you would need to charge multiple times.

A ball/ mechanical mouse is the first type of mouse that was used with computers. There was a rubber ball in the mouse that you could spin in a particular direction. A sensor inside would detect it to move the cursor to your desired position. It can hardly be seen in use now.

The scroll/wheel mouse is quite common. A scroll/ wheel mouse is the one where a little wheel is stuck between the left and right buttons to scroll through a page. These mouses come in all forms - wired, wireless, optical, and more.

An optical mouse is the type of mouse that's seen used mostly nowadays. It has a LED light at the bottom of the mouse which detects movements. It only works on specific surfaces, like a mouse pad, and not on many other surfaces like plastic or clear glass.

A roller bar mouse is quite a developed design of mouse that usually stays attached to the keyboard. You can use both or one hand to control the cursor on your computer from the middle of your keyboard.

Uses And Benefits Of Computer Mouse

A computer mouse has become an extremely important part of everyday life as people's lives are depending more and more on computers. A mouse has multiple uses and benefits that make them irreplaceable.

One of the main five uses of a mouse are that you can use it to select a file or folder in your computer. If you need to move a particular folder or file, you can move it easily with the help of a mouse.

This function is called drag-and-drop.

You can click the mouse button on the file, folder, image, document, or anything else you want to move and you continue on pressing the mouse button and shift it until you've moved it to your desired place.

You can hover over a link or some text on a document to select a specific portion with a mouse. The most important two functions you can do are open or close a file, folder, document, web link, or more and scroll through a page with a mouse without clicking on the go-down option beside the page.

There are a number of benefits to a mouse. The ease of use and mobility that comes with a mouse is unparalleled.

It becomes quite easy to do your job when you get a lot of space to move around, especially for graphic and other designers who work by drawing on their computer.

The mouse nowadays has become so advanced that they not only help you move the cursor from one place to another, but you can also get many additional options that will help you relay a command easily, even with one hand.

Using a mouse is such an easy task that you can learn to use it even in one day. Even the first-time user will be able to use the device in only a few tries.

Who First Created The Computer Mouse

The renowned inventor and engineer Douglas Engelbart invented the first computer mouse in 1963-64. The first prototype of the computer mouse was a very simple mechanical device with two discs on the bottom.

Douglas Engelbart was the director of the Augmentation Research Center at the renowned Stanford Research Institute (SRI). He was inventing new ways to increase a person's complex problem-solving capabilities.

They included computers in aiding the problem-solving method and they were looking for a kind of interactive device that would connect with the information displayed to move the cursor around the screen. Many devices were being used at that time, like joysticks, light pens, and more.

He along with his team approached NASA for further testing on the devices.

As NASA agreed, they made a group of volunteers to test the timings. They would put a file or some other object at a random position on the screen and put the cursor on another random position.

They would then tell the volunteers to move the cursor to the file or object and see how much time it took them. It was pretty evident that the way the mouse performed was significantly ahead of any other devices.

They built the first computer mouse prototype in 1964 with the cord on the front but then moved it to the back for ease of use. Douglas Engelbart received the patent in 1970 for the computer mouse with a wooden shell and two wheels.

Engelbart gave it the name 'mouse' because the cord at the back of the device resembled a mouse. Later, he asked Bill English to improve the hardware design and Jeff Rulifson to improve the software quality.

The first wireless mouse was made by Logitech for Metaphor computers. It used to run using infrared signals, but this required a clear connection from the mouse to the computer receiver which became a problem when working at an office desk full of necessary things.

The wireless mouse only became popular after they solved this problem by using radio frequency communications instead of infrared signals.

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