by Jason Garland

Created on: January 12, 2009

It's difficult to imagine computing without the humble little mouse. Try this experiment: navigate out to the desktop and then try to open your favorite program without touching your mouse. Tough, isn't it? Granted, it can be done, but using the keyboard to navigate a GUI based OS like Microsoft Windows or OS X is a finger-stretching exercises most of us would rather avoid.

The concept of the mouse has been around since the 1960's, but back then the mouse really didn't make much sense. Computers were designed to imitate typewriters, the screen acting as a replacement for paper, and when other input methods were called for people tended to think of things like light pens and touchscreens. Granted, both of those methods are still great ideas, the light pen having morphed into today's stylus, and the touchscreen being featured more and more prominently in gadgets like the IPhone and ITouch. It was only when computer operating systems started featuring graphical interfaces rather than command lines that the mouse was finally able to get a foothold. Almost thirty years later and it has become an indispensable part of computing life.

Not all mice, however, are created alike. There are several different species (pun intended) out there to choose from. In this article we'll take a brief look at the major players.

The Trackball Mouse

The trackball mouse was the original design for mice and is still around, though not quite as popular these days has his younger brother, the optical mouse. A trackball mouse works by have a small rubber ball slightly protruding from its base that touches the mousepad and is rolled along in the direction the user would like the pointer to travel. On the inside of the mouse the trackball touches and rolls against two small wheels, the X and Y axis, which in turn spin larger wheels that allow a LED light to pass through them intermittently. This LED light hits a sensor and produces a signal indicating how fast the mouse is rolling and how far it has gone. This is translated from the mouse to the computer into a moving pointer.

As clever as this is, the trackball suffers from a few design flaws, not the least of which is its tendency to pick up dirt and hair from off the mousepad. When this dirt and hair build up on the contact wheels, it causes all sort of erratic pointer behavior. Granted, you can open up the mouse and clean off the wheels, but who really wants to touch all that nasty gunk and hair that's been collecting in there for who knows

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