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thanks for watching tech wiki click the subscribe button then enable

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notifications with the Bell icon so you won't miss any future videos so back in

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the 1960s an animator slash business tycoon bought a bunch of land in Central

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Florida turning it into a sprawling resort that specializes in wholesome

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family fun at unreasonable price hahaha

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no not that Mouse today's episode is

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about the computer mouse and at first you might not think there's much history

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to discuss because they didn't start becoming widespread on personal

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computers until the mid to late 80s but it turns out that the concept of using

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something other than those clunky arrow keys to move a cursor around predates

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the modern mouse by several decades I'm talking about the trackball which sprang

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into existence all the way back in 1946

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as part of a british navy project to

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help track aircraft on radar this

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concept was later adapted by the canadian navy for their own tracking

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system which used a small five pin bowling ball of all things for the ball

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because presumably they couldn't get funding for a real one

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anywho these early implementations were rather crude with the ball placed on top

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of spinning metal discs that came into contact with wires but because the UK

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considered it a military secret the idea

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of using a spinning or rolling object as a computer input device wouldn't end up

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being realized in the civilian world until years later when the first true

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Mouse was invented in 1964 at Stanford

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University now unlike modern mice which have total freedom of movement in one

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plane this early Mouse only had two pizza cutter looking wheels that allowed

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movement up and down or side to side but

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not at the same time the inventors decided to call their creation a mouse

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because the wire sticking out of the end looked like a rodents tail and they used

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it in conjunction with the nls a DARPA

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funded computer system that included clickable hyperlink remember this was

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nearly 30 years before the internet started becoming widespread

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soon after that the mouse was picked up by Xerox who developed a personal

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computer called the alto in 1973 which used an actual graphical user

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interface complete with mouse support and Xerox was actually also developing

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ball mice while they worked on the alto which would allow users to move the

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mouse in any direction they pleased these worked by keeping the ball in

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contact with axles attached to wheels with holes in them as the mouse moved

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the axles would turn the wheels causing beams of light to repeatedly break into

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pulses which hit sensors that registered which way the mouse was moving this

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design revolutionized the way we interact with our computers but Xerox

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was and still is a company that's focused on producing products for

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business rather than home use meaning that the mouse wasn't very well known

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until Apple came along made a deal with Xerox to give them partial ownership of

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Apple in return for the use of Xeroxes technology and then popularized the

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device with the original Macintosh in 1984

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even though Xerox had already switched to ball mice and Microsoft was already

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selling them for use with word processors no doubt Apple's clever

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marketing played a role in pushing a pre-existing technology into the

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mainstream consciousness some things never do change am i right anyway aside

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from changes in economics which gave mice a shape more suited to the hand

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than that original plastic brick form the basic way that they worked didn't

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really change between the mid 80s and the mid 90s though we did get laptops

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with those little nub style pointing sticks and the first track pads in the

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interim so users of external nice had to wait until 1966 for the first widespread

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mouse with a scroll wheel even though

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that concept had actually been realized back in 1985 with the Mighty Mouse

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featuring a wheel on the side instead of the top that you controlled with your

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thumb then the late 90s also brought an even bigger sea change optical mice like

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the scroll wheel Mouse the optical mouse was first developed long before it hit

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the market in fact early versions that used specific tracking surfaces were

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actually invented back in 1980 when even

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ball mice were relatively unknown but development of optical mice that could

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work with generic surfaces like mouse pads table tops or your pants didn't

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happen until much later and it also took awhile for component costs to come down

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to the point where they were cheap enough to mass-produce when they finally

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did appear on the consumer market in 1999 optical mice were still expensive

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with some of Microsoft's early offerings retailing for around 70 US dollars in

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fact the first ever gaming mouse the

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Razer Boomslang also launched in 1999

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but that one still used a mechanical ball the upsides to optical mice

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included not only more accurate tracking than with a ball mouse but also better

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reliability the optical sensors which worked by taking many photos of the

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surface that the mouse sat on every second and then sending them to a chip

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that would process those images to detect movement were much more resistant

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to the dirt and gunk that all too often

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fouled up mouse balls and degraded performance later in 2004 logitech

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released a frickin laser mouse which

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would not only incinerate your enemies but also sport even more accurate

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tracking thanks to the use of a laser beam which could see surfaces under the

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mouse with more precision than standard LEDs this was a boon for more serious PC

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gamers that wanted the more granular tracking during the heat of battle and

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other significant advances in Mouse technology began to be driven by gamers

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over the coming years such as more powerful processors inside the mice

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themselves so they could scan surfaces and process movement more frequently and

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allowing users to adjust the sensitivity of the mouse on the fly for situations

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that require precise aiming like we've seen with the ever-popular sniper button

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now there have been other improvements too mice in recent years but they mostly

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come in the form of adding more general technologies to mice to make them more

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versatile like replacing ps2 with USB

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which you can learn about here implementing scroll wheels that can

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switch between smooth or clicky operation adding wireless data and even

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charging support peppering them with programmable macro buttons adding the

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ability to track on glass by scanning for small scratches and dust particles

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and of course covering them with the oh so important RGB lighting that you know

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that you crave so today then it's been a long time

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since doug engelbart and bill english gave us their original wooden box on

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wheels but the simplicity and intuitiveness of the mouse has ensured

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its continuation as an extremely important input device even in the age

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of touchscreens and voice control maybe

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it'll finally be usurped by the development of something like a neural

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interface but by that time we'll probably be dealing with a whole new set

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of problems thanks to the internet there's never

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been more opportunities to be self-employed and with all these

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freelancers and small business owners out there there's got to be an

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accounting solution that is easy enough for them to use and yet powerful enough

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oh wait there is fresh books check out

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organized and perhaps most importantly get paid faster you can create and send

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payments with just a couple of clicks and get paid up to four days faster you

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FreshBooks is offering a 30-day unrestricted free trial to our viewers

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we've got that linked below to claim it go to FreshBooks comm slash Techquickie

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and enter Techquickie in the how did you hear about us section so thanks for

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watching guys like dislike check out our other channels leave a comment with a suggestion for a future video and

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