About the site

The mouses.info website was created to track the history of the cursor control devices: mainly computer mice and trackballs, but also some more exotic ones, such as joysticks, paddles, etc. Actually,any cursor controller is in our area of interest if it’s a separate human interface device intended to move some cursor on the screen.

Cursor controllers (especially mice) are interesting from several points of view. First, they contain some kind of mechanism that would convert movement into electrical signals, and here we can observe a variety of both the principles of conversion and the features of their implementation – and sometimes, unexpected designs and bizarre solutions are encountered. Second, the need for intensive human interaction with the device has given rise to many variations in form and design features targeted at making this interaction as convenient as possible. Physical principles and features of biomechanical interaction were evolving and complementing each other, adapting to the changing needs and workflow of users.

Therefore, we review mice, trackballs and other devices from several points of view, studying their internal structure, usage specifics, and ergonomics.

The latter is especially important, because review articles in periodicals and photographs in catalogs often do not allow us to assess correctly the shape and size of the product. And no adequate model of the user experience can be built without this.
We provide rotating animated images of each device to avoid this limitation, and also use photos on a centimeter scale graduated pad. Also, a clear visual comparison of all devices is done with a photo of a human hand model:

As you can see, we use a model of a female (or small male) hand – which is a more universal option, given that some devices, e.g. for home computers, were developed for children or teenagers (in few examples with a pedal we also use a foot model 40 european size).