I have already looked at the origins of the computer mouse in Mouse Design: 1963 to 1983, ending the story before the Apple Macintosh was introduced in January 1984, the first affordable personal computer to ship with a mouse and Graphical User Interface (GUI). This is the story of mouse development on personal computers, primarily Macs and PCs.
Logitech Was First
Logitech started with two students in the graduate program in computer science at Stanford who became friends in 1976 and business partners while still in school. Their dream was to create a word processing system. (In 1976, personal computers were hobbyist projects. Assembled “home computers” didn’t come to market until 1977.) They added a former Olivetti engineer and obtained a 4-month contract from Ricoh to do a feasibility study. With funding for the project, the trio founded Logitech S.A. in Apples, Switzerland on October 2, 1981. In 1982, Logitech opened its first U.S. office in Palo Alto, California.
Logitech P4 mouse
A pointing device known as a mouse was beginning to garner attention, as it was an excellent tool for working with a GUI or even on-screen text. The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology was working on a mouse, and the Logitech group teamed up with them to bring the mouse out of the laboratory and into the office. The Logitech P4 Mouse, introduced in late 1982, was the first in a long line of mice and trackballs from Logitech.
Logitech took its mouse to the Comdex trade show in Fall 1982, and in late 1983 Logitech received a contract to supply mice for Apollo Computer, one of the first companies to sell graphical workstations in the early 1980s. In 1984, Logitech contracted to provide a mouse to HP. As Logitech grew, it needed to increase its profit margin and production capabilities, choosing to manufacture in Taiwan in 1986. Based on Logitech’s track record, it was contracted to produce some of Apple’s mice.
The Personal Computer Market
The Lisa mouse
Apple’s Lisa, released in January 1983, was the first “personal” computer to ship with a mouse, although at $10,000, it really was stretching the definition of “personal”. It was followed by the $2,495 Macintosh in January 1984. If you’ve ever used a Mac with an Apple mouse, you know that Apple’s standard is a one-button mouse.
Apple used a female DE-9 port for connecting its mouse to Lisa – and to Macintosh starting in 1984. Atari ST and Amiga computers would use the same port starting in 1985, which was also the port used for many videogame joystick controllers. (Although the port was the same, a mouse port doesn’t work properly with a joystick, nor a joystick port with a mouse.)
All of the above computers originally shipped with opto-mechanical mice.
Ad for original Microsoft mouse
Microsoft entered the retail market with its first mouse in 1983. Retailing for $195, the mouse required a Microsoft bus card and shipped with Microsoft Word (a new version written with mouse support), Notepad, and a mouse tutorial. As you probably expected, it was a 2-button mouse, a standard that Microsoft adhered to for ages. Early Microsoft mice used a metal ball.
In 1984, Microsoft developed a serial mouse for Xerox, but it used an RJ45 connector. It wasn’t until 1985 that the first Microsoft serial mouse shipped for PCs, and the buyer got to choose between a DE-9 or DB-25 serial connector.
This was the beginning of the Microsoft Hardware Division.
Logitech C7 mouse
Logitech entered the retail market in December 1985 with the launch of its 3-button C7 mouse, an opto-mechanical device for superior tracking and the first opto-mechanical mouse on the retail market. In addition to a $99 serial mouse, Logitech also shipped a bus mouse with a card for $149, claiming this mouse was 100% Microsoft compatible.
On a personal note, when I migrated from my Commodore 64 to a Zenith PC in 1987, my first mouse was a Logitech C7.
Beyond Serial Ports: ADB and PS/2
Apple introduced a new connection system for its mice and keyboards. The Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) was introduced with the Apple IIGS in 1986 and came to the Macintosh market with the released of the Mac II and Mac SE in March 1987. With ADB, there were no longer separate ports for mice and keyboards, and the mouse could plug into any ADB keyboard with a pass-through port. Apple introduced a new, slimmer mouse with the Apple IIGS.
About the same time that the Macintosh went ADB, IBM introduced a whole new line of personal computers, the PS/2 family. Released in April 1987, the new models had a small keyboard port similar in size to Apple’s ADB, which was compatible with the IBM AT keyboard protocol, so a simple adapter made it possible to use older keyboards with the new models.
The PS/2 mouse port looks like the PS/2 keyboard port, although on later computers they are color coded to make it easier to distinguish them. The protocol on the mouse port is similar to that of the keyboard port, but they are not the same, so you should always make sure the keyboard and mouse are plugged into the right port.
Back to Mice
1987 was the year that Microsoft moved away from its original boxy mouse design for something more curvy. The “Dove bar” mouse – so named for the bar of soap – was available in serial and PS/2 versions.
Logitech got away from its squared-off design with the C9 mouse, designed by Frog Design and introduced in 1989. This mouse has a nice curved surface and fit the hand very nicely – not that the C7 didn’t. The first Logitech Trackman was introduced the same year, but we’ll cover that when we look at trackball history.
In 1990, Logitech introduced the MouseMan® in three different versions – one for right-handers, one for lefties, and one for larger hands. MouseMan came in both serial and bus versions.
The Early Wireless Era
With the Logitech MouseMan Cordless, introduced in 1991, Logitech shipped the first wireless mouse. For the first time, the mouse had no tail. Instead, the mouse sent an RF (radio frequency) signal to a receiver wired to the computer.
Microsoft replaced its Dove bar mouse with the Microsoft Mouse 2.0 in 1993. The new design had more of a kidney shape.
Apple’s One-Button Legacy
Apple used a very similar set of mice for its earliest computers – Lisa, the Apple II series, and the first four Macintoshes all had a very rectangular, blockish one-button mouse. When Apple introduced ADB in 1986, it released a more ergonomic mouse – still rectangular from the top, but the top surface was tapered toward the front and back.
The ADB Mouse II was introduced in 1993 and had a more rounded, ergonomic, user friendly shape that provided more comfortable support for the user’s resting palm. In fact, much of the accessory industry followed the shape of the Mouse II, giving most mice a very similar look and feel.
Enter the Scroll Wheel
Until 1996, computer mice had 2 or 3 buttons and usually a metal or rubber-coated ball to track movement. But once the scroll mouse entered the market, it started to become a standard feature on all but the cheapest mice. (Today you can find USB mice on eBay that include a scroll wheel for under $2 shipped. I have been using a few of them for years, and they are surprisingly good, although the price was closer to $5 when I got mine over a decade ago.)
The first scroll wheel mouse had been developed by NTT and ETH Zürich in 1985, with the scroll wheel located on the side of the mouse. However, it would be a decade before the first commercial scroll mouse came to market, the Genius EasyScroll from KYE Systems in Taiwan.
The first commercially available scroll mouse was the Microsoft IntelliMouse, introduced on July 22, 1996. It was the first of a family descended from the “Dove soap” Mouse 2.0. With the Intellimouse, the scroll wheel reached the masses for the first time. The IntelliMouse Pro replaced the original in May 1998.
Early USB Mice
Origins of USB
USB was introduced in January 1996 as a planned replacement for the keyboard, mouse, printer, and serial ports used on personal computers. Although some Windows PCs and logic board shipped with USB 1.0 ports, the new port didn’t catch on until August 1998, the month that the first Apple iMac shipped – the first personal computer with no legacy accessory ports. This was also the month that the USB 1.1 protocol was finalized.
Apple had cleverly announced the iMac in May, giving the peripheral industry several months to develop printers and scanners and CD-burners and keyboards and mice and even floppy drives, a feature that the new iMac did not include. Whether Apple intended it or not, its round USB mouse drove the USB mouse market, and for the first time it became easy to get a multi-button mouse for a Macintosh. (When Mac OS X Public Beta shipped in September 2000, it included support for more than one mouse button – a first for Apple.)
On to Optical Mice
Although there had been a few optical mice before 1999, that was the year that the first optical mice that didn’t require a special mouse pad came to market, with Microsoft leading the way. For more on mouse development, see Mouse History, 1999 to Present.
Resources
- Logitech History (PDF), Logitech, March 2007
- Logitech’s 25 Most Important Products (PDF), Logitech, circa 2006
- The Good, Bad and Ugly History of Microsoft Hardware, PC World, 2012.10.17
- Microsoft Mouse and IntelliMouse, Wikipedia
- 30 Years of Microsoft Hardware: From Mice to Men, Harrison Weber, The Next Web, 2012.05.28
