Tag: optomechanical encoder

The Commodore C300 mouse labeled Joystick Mouse on the box is one of the reincarnations of the Kempston Mouse released in 1986 for ZX Spectrum computers, adapted for Commodore computers. Externally, the mouse looks typical, having two buttons on top and a ball on the bottom. According to the accompanying description, this mouse has two modes of operation: joystick mode…

In 1986, the American Computer and Peripheral company released the American 286 desktop computer, based on the i80286 processor, and equipped with a mouse called the American Mouse. A notch on the slightly slanted front of the mouse cover houses three phenomenally narrow buttons. Massive switches located under the buttons forced developers to use an asymmetrical layout of the mouse…

The UniMouse computer mouse was released by Contour Design, a company that specializes exclusively in ergonomic manipulators, for Apple iMac computers as a replacement for the bundled Apple USB mouse, known as the ”puck” because of its round shape. The Apple USB mouse was criticized by many for its poor ergonomics, and a year after it hit the market, an…

The SurfMouse is a typical example of a skeuomorph — a device that imitates the appearance of another object that has nothing to do with its main function. It is easy to see that in this case the appearance of a surfboard is copied. The mouse has a symmetrical body, the upper part of which is shaped like a surfboard….

In February 1989, Fujitsu announced the first model of the FM Towns family of computers, running its own Towns OS graphics system. FM Towns was a proprietary variant of the PC-compatible architecture focused on multimedia applications and games. The first FM Towns model used an Intel 80386 processor, was equipped with 1 or 2 megabytes of RAM, a CD-ROM drive,…