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Back in 1983, when the original Microsoft green-eyed mouse first hit the market,

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mice weren't terribly common peripherals, but Microsoft saw an opportunity to be early to the

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game for the upcoming surge of graphical operating systems, as well as to make some of its own software

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products easier to use. So Microsoft bundled their first mouse with copies of Word and Notepad

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and sold it for $195 US dollars, equivalent to about $600 today. Even though that was incredibly

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expensive, you also needed a separately sold Microsoft adapter card for your PC, and there

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definitely weren't any of the bells and whistles you see on modern mice. In fact, the mouse ball

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was just plain steel. It didn't even have that rubber coating you'd see in later mice.

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Microsoft only sold about 5,000 of the green-eyed mice, and their mouse business didn't really

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take off until a later version of this mouse came out in 1985. Nicknamed the gray-eyed mouse,

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it did feature a quieter rubber-coated ball, a higher tracking resolution, and more ergonomically

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designed buttons that were easier to click for a wide variety of handshapes, winning the mouse

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significant acclaim, and as a result, setting the stage for Microsoft to become a major mouse

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manufacturer, say that five times fast for the next, wow, it's been nearly four decades.

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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,

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you know, like the soap. Importantly, it was available in PS2 port-compatible versions,

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handy as the PS2 port on computers was also introduced that same year, and it went on to

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become the dominant type of mouse port before USB. But Microsoft's next major mouse release

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was even more radical. In 1991, we got the ballpoint mouse, and instead of being a mouse in the

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traditional sense, it was more of a trackball that clipped to the side of a laptop and connected to

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the system using a serial port. Most laptops of the era didn't have any kind of pointing device

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built in at all, and were big enough to quickly eat up most of the airline tray table, which is why

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products of the era were designed this way. But getting away from trackballs, 1993, what a year,

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brought up the next version of the traditional Microsoft mouse, aptly named the Microsoft

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Mouse 2.0. It was commonly known as the Kidney Mouse, as it had an asymmetrical curve shape,

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which made it comfortable for right-handers. But for the roughly 10% of the population

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that was left-handed, it was a little awkward, even though Microsoft had the audacity to claim

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in its marketing that it could be used with either hand equally well. They even doubled down on the

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kidney design for their popular 1996 model called the Intelli Mouse. Intelli Mouse, I like what it

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does with my tongue. The biggest new feature it brought was the scroll wheel. Love those things,

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and although strictly speaking, it wasn't the world's first scroll wheel mouse, the Intelli Mouse,

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was credited with helping to popularize it as scrolling through web pages was just starting

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to become a common enough pastime. I'm still scrolling. But there's actually a misconception

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that the original Intelli Mouse was the first consumer mouse with an optical sensor. Actually,

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the Intelli Mouse still used a ball, as did the Intelli Mouse Pro, which was released in 1998,

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with a higher arch that was intended to be more comfortable. The version that was actually the

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first optical mouse to become widespread in the consumer market was the Intelli Mouse Explorer,

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released in 1999, and it looked every bit the mouse of the future, at least by late 90s standards.

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The mouse was contained in a silver-colored chassis, and it even had a brilliant red light at the back

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that lit up whenever the user moved it. Although it was quite expensive with a starting retail

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price of $74.95, the optical sensor was a hit with consumers who enjoyed its resistance to dirt

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and dust and all those little bits that would just get caught if you took a ball out and you like

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you're not old like me. Later in the year, Microsoft added the optical sensor, branded as the

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Intelli Eye, to the standard Intelli Mouse at a lower price point. And the next year,

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we got the Intelli Mouse Optical, which was actually ambidextrous. I actually don't know

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who uses the mouse on their left hand. A wireless version of the Intelli Mouse Explorer appeared

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in 2001, but in 2003, it was updated with a scroll wheel that could actually tilt side to side

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for horizontal scrolling, super useful in spreadsheets, and in 2006, the Wired Explorer

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was updated with a 9000 image per second sensor, a dramatic increase from the original model's

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1500. As Microsoft wanted to target gamers who would benefit from the increased tracking rate,

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but the next Microsoft mice were dramatically different. In 2008, we got the Arc Mouse,

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which emphasized portability as you could fold it up, and its design, which

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arched up off your desk surface, made it extremely memorable. In 2010, the Arc Mouse was updated to

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bring us the Arc Touch Mouse, which not only featured touch scrolling rather than traditional

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wheel, but it could also fold flat to make it easier to slip into a bag. Though we did get a

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regular Touch Mouse in 2011 for those who didn't like the Arc shape. Next, we get the very antithesis

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of Sleek, the Sculpt ergonomic mouse, followed by various iterations of more standard mouse designs

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during the 2010s. Then in 2017, Microsoft came somewhat full circle when they released the

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classic Intelli Mouse based on the original Explorer design with a modernized look,

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followed by the pro Intelli Mouse in 2019 with the more accurate sensor, and you guessed it,

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baby RGB, because not even Microsoft was going to pass up the opportunity to take a classic

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and make it gamer. And we'd be remiss if we didn't also mention the Microsoft Adaptive Mouse

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released in 2022, designed for a high degree of customizability and accessibility. The base mouse

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is a compact square that you can attach mouse tails to either an official Microsoft one or a

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3D printed option that accommodates different grip types that suit you. But this might be the last

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notable entry in the Microsoft mouse lineup. The company is putting everything under the surface

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brand going forward, which for now means game over for the Microsoft mouse brand. So thanks for

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watching guys, if you liked this video hit like, hit subscribe and hit us up in the comment section

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with your ideas for topics that we should cover in the future.