Back in 1983, when the original Microsoft green-eyed mouse first hit the market,
mice weren't terribly common peripherals, but Microsoft saw an opportunity to be early to the
game for the upcoming surge of graphical operating systems, as well as to make some of its own software
products easier to use. So Microsoft bundled their first mouse with copies of Word and Notepad
and sold it for $195 US dollars, equivalent to about $600 today. Even though that was incredibly
expensive, you also needed a separately sold Microsoft adapter card for your PC, and there
definitely weren't any of the bells and whistles you see on modern mice. In fact, the mouse ball
was just plain steel. It didn't even have that rubber coating you'd see in later mice.
Microsoft only sold about 5,000 of the green-eyed mice, and their mouse business didn't really
take off until a later version of this mouse came out in 1985. Nicknamed the gray-eyed mouse,
it did feature a quieter rubber-coated ball, a higher tracking resolution, and more ergonomically
designed buttons that were easier to click for a wide variety of handshapes, winning the mouse
significant acclaim, and as a result, setting the stage for Microsoft to become a major mouse
manufacturer, say that five times fast for the next, wow, it's been nearly four decades.
So let's look at how they've evolved. That whole thing was intro. Microsoft released a much more modern-looking mouse design in 1987, named the Dove Mouse,
you know, like the soap. Importantly, it was available in PS2 port-compatible versions,
handy as the PS2 port on computers was also introduced that same year, and it went on to
become the dominant type of mouse port before USB. But Microsoft's next major mouse release
was even more radical. In 1991, we got the ballpoint mouse, and instead of being a mouse in the
traditional sense, it was more of a trackball that clipped to the side of a laptop and connected to
the system using a serial port. Most laptops of the era didn't have any kind of pointing device
built in at all, and were big enough to quickly eat up most of the airline tray table, which is why
products of the era were designed this way. But getting away from trackballs, 1993, what a year,
brought up the next version of the traditional Microsoft mouse, aptly named the Microsoft
Mouse 2.0. It was commonly known as the Kidney Mouse, as it had an asymmetrical curve shape,
which made it comfortable for right-handers. But for the roughly 10% of the population
that was left-handed, it was a little awkward, even though Microsoft had the audacity to claim
in its marketing that it could be used with either hand equally well. They even doubled down on the
kidney design for their popular 1996 model called the Intelli Mouse. Intelli Mouse, I like what it
does with my tongue. The biggest new feature it brought was the scroll wheel. Love those things,
and although strictly speaking, it wasn't the world's first scroll wheel mouse, the Intelli Mouse,
was credited with helping to popularize it as scrolling through web pages was just starting
to become a common enough pastime. I'm still scrolling. But there's actually a misconception
that the original Intelli Mouse was the first consumer mouse with an optical sensor. Actually,
the Intelli Mouse still used a ball, as did the Intelli Mouse Pro, which was released in 1998,
with a higher arch that was intended to be more comfortable. The version that was actually the
first optical mouse to become widespread in the consumer market was the Intelli Mouse Explorer,
released in 1999, and it looked every bit the mouse of the future, at least by late 90s standards.
The mouse was contained in a silver-colored chassis, and it even had a brilliant red light at the back
that lit up whenever the user moved it. Although it was quite expensive with a starting retail
price of $74.95, the optical sensor was a hit with consumers who enjoyed its resistance to dirt
and dust and all those little bits that would just get caught if you took a ball out and you like
you're not old like me. Later in the year, Microsoft added the optical sensor, branded as the
Intelli Eye, to the standard Intelli Mouse at a lower price point. And the next year,
we got the Intelli Mouse Optical, which was actually ambidextrous. I actually don't know
who uses the mouse on their left hand. A wireless version of the Intelli Mouse Explorer appeared
in 2001, but in 2003, it was updated with a scroll wheel that could actually tilt side to side
for horizontal scrolling, super useful in spreadsheets, and in 2006, the Wired Explorer
was updated with a 9000 image per second sensor, a dramatic increase from the original model's
1500. As Microsoft wanted to target gamers who would benefit from the increased tracking rate,
but the next Microsoft mice were dramatically different. In 2008, we got the Arc Mouse,
which emphasized portability as you could fold it up, and its design, which
arched up off your desk surface, made it extremely memorable. In 2010, the Arc Mouse was updated to
bring us the Arc Touch Mouse, which not only featured touch scrolling rather than traditional
wheel, but it could also fold flat to make it easier to slip into a bag. Though we did get a
regular Touch Mouse in 2011 for those who didn't like the Arc shape. Next, we get the very antithesis
of Sleek, the Sculpt ergonomic mouse, followed by various iterations of more standard mouse designs
during the 2010s. Then in 2017, Microsoft came somewhat full circle when they released the
classic Intelli Mouse based on the original Explorer design with a modernized look,
followed by the pro Intelli Mouse in 2019 with the more accurate sensor, and you guessed it,
baby RGB, because not even Microsoft was going to pass up the opportunity to take a classic
and make it gamer. And we'd be remiss if we didn't also mention the Microsoft Adaptive Mouse
released in 2022, designed for a high degree of customizability and accessibility. The base mouse
is a compact square that you can attach mouse tails to either an official Microsoft one or a
3D printed option that accommodates different grip types that suit you. But this might be the last
notable entry in the Microsoft mouse lineup. The company is putting everything under the surface
brand going forward, which for now means game over for the Microsoft mouse brand. So thanks for
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with your ideas for topics that we should cover in the future.