It's a great price, but the main reason I'm posting here is because I'm almost certain someone (Mercutio?) liked the original MS Intellimouse. It's available via a clearance special right now at Mwave.
Original MS Intellimouse (serial version), $0.99
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paugie
Storage is cool
doesn't say if it was an optical mouse, would anybody know?
Actually P5-133XL, I bought my first optical mouse in 1990. It was made by Mouse Systems, in Fremont, CA.
The thing about optical mice back then though was that they required special reflective mouse pads. Do you remember them? They were mirrored surfaces, covered with light blue and light gray intersecting lines. Crossing those lines was how the mouse detected it was moving. I think it's the same idea as how my Logitech trackball works (it has a red ball with black dots patterned over the surface). Anyway, those Mouse Systems mice with their cool mouse pads were also available for Sun Microsystems hardware. I remember thinking I'd scored a pretty neat product, because my mouse was the only PC version I ever came across -- all the other identical mice I saw were for Sun SparcStations, etc.
Anyway, to answer your question Paugie, no, the Microsoft Intellimouse is not optical (well, not outwardly). It's a regular mechanical design with a rolling ball. Internally it uses IR sensors to watch a pair of X-Y wheels spin, but that's nothing special. I think all mechanical mice use that trick to figure out where the mouse ball is rolling.
The thing about optical mice back then though was that they required special reflective mouse pads. Do you remember them? They were mirrored surfaces, covered with light blue and light gray intersecting lines. Crossing those lines was how the mouse detected it was moving. I think it's the same idea as how my Logitech trackball works (it has a red ball with black dots patterned over the surface). Anyway, those Mouse Systems mice with their cool mouse pads were also available for Sun Microsystems hardware. I remember thinking I'd scored a pretty neat product, because my mouse was the only PC version I ever came across -- all the other identical mice I saw were for Sun SparcStations, etc.
Anyway, to answer your question Paugie, no, the Microsoft Intellimouse is not optical (well, not outwardly). It's a regular mechanical design with a rolling ball. Internally it uses IR sensors to watch a pair of X-Y wheels spin, but that's nothing special. I think all mechanical mice use that trick to figure out where the mouse ball is rolling.
Yes, of course I remember the old optical mice with their specialized mouse pads, though I can't say I remmeber Sun's version. Still the Original intellimouse was released much before the optical mice were common. Microsoft gives a 1996 date for the release of the intellimouse and the year 2000 for their optical Intellimouse.
Wikipedia article on mice history. I note that the Wiki article claims 1980 as the date of the first optical mice and that's far earlier than I would have thought.
Centrix is selling off a nice, older-model Logitech optical mouse, specifically the Logitech M-SBF69, for $5.99 (and they're new, at that) with volume discounts available. A possible drawback is that they're PS/2 only.
Also, if you tolerate 3Com products, in another deal they're selling off new 3Com Etherlink XL 3C900-TPO network cards for $0.70 each. At 10Mbps only, a pair would be fine for a dedicated firewall PC (unless you've got one heck of an ISP).
Also, if you tolerate 3Com products, in another deal they're selling off new 3Com Etherlink XL 3C900-TPO network cards for $0.70 each. At 10Mbps only, a pair would be fine for a dedicated firewall PC (unless you've got one heck of an ISP).