Computer mouse facts for kids

Many mice have two buttons and a scroll wheel.

A computer mouse is an input device that is most often used with a personal computer. Moving a mouse along a flat surface can move the on-screen cursor to different items on the screen. Items can be moved or selected by pressing the mouse buttons (called clicking).

It is called a computer mouse because of the wire that connects the mouse to the computer. The people who designed the first computer mice thought that it looked like the tail on a mouse. Today, many computer mice use wireless technology and have no wire.

History

Creator of the first mouse, Douglas Engelbart.

In 1964 Douglas Engelbart (1925-2013), a researcher at Stanford Research Institute, wanted to find a way to make using computers easier. In those days, computers were large and expensive. Using them was very hard because everything had to be typed in by hand, and there was no way to alter things if you made a mistake.

After studying and designing for a long time, Engelbart succeeded in inventing an input device which he named 'XY index'.

At first, it needed two hands to use, but it was changed so that only one hand was needed to use it. This model was more like the mouse that we use today. Xerox Palo Alto Research introduced a GUI in 1981, using a mouse.

Early Apple II mouse with single button

The mouse was used with Macintosh of Apple Inc. when it came out in 1984. Microsoft Windows also used the mouse when it came out, so over time computer mice became used with many computers. Modern mice have three buttons: left button, right button, scroll button.

Uses

On most computers, the user can move the mouse to move the cursor in the same direction. To choose something that is on the screen, the user can move the cursor to it and "click" the left mouse button. The right mouse button is used to open menus that are different depending on where the cursor is. The other mouse buttons can do different things, depending on the software. Most mice have two buttons to click.

Most mice also have a "scroll wheel"—a small wheel found between the two main mouse buttons. The user can move the wheel back and forth to "scroll" through things like a website or folder. "Scrolling" means moving the words or pictures up or down on the screen, so another part of the page comes into view. The wheel can also be pressed, to click it like another button.

Related pages

• Touchpad
• Trackball
• Touchscreen
• Mousepad

Images for kids

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  A computer mouse with the most common features: two buttons (left and right) and a scroll wheel (which also functions as a button)

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  A typical wireless computer mouse

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  A computer mouse is named for its resemblance to the rodent.

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  The Engelbart mouse

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  Early mouse patents. From left to right: Opposing track wheels by Engelbart, November 1970, U.S. Patent 3,541,541 . Ball and wheel by Rider, September 1974, U.S. Patent 3,835,464 . Ball and two rollers with spring by Opocensky, October 1976, U.S. Patent 3,987,685 

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  Bottom side of the Telefunken Rollkugel RKS 100-86 showing the ball

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  HP-HIL Mouse from 1984

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  Mechanical mouse, shown with the top cover removed. The scroll wheel is gray, to the right of the ball.

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  Hawley Mark II Mice from the Mouse House

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  The underside of an optical mouse.

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  A vertical mouse

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  Keyboard with roller bar mouse

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  A Logitech G703 gaming mouse, with two buttons at the front and two buttons on the side

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  A Microsoft wireless Arc Mouse, marketed as "travel-friendly" and foldable but otherwise operated exactly like other 3-button wheel-based optical mice

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  Xerox Alto mouse

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  Signals XA and XB in quadrature convey X-direction motion, while YA and YB convey Y-dimension motion; here the pointer (cursor) is shown drawing a small curve.

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  Apple Macintosh Plus mice: beige mouse (left), platinum mouse (right), 1986

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  Color-coded PS/2 connection ports; purple for keyboard and green for mouse

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  A USB connector soon superseded the PS/2 keyboard and computer mouse connectors shown above

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  Razer Mouse with additional buttons

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  Computer mice built between 1986 and 2007

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  Logitech G5 laser mouse designed for games, with adjustable weights (on left)

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  Sega Dreamcast mouse

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  Logitech spacemouse 3D. On display at the Bolo Computer Museum, EPFL, Lausanne

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  Silicon Graphics SpaceBall model 1003 (1988), allowing manipulation of objects with six degrees of freedom.

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  Logitech 3D Mouse (1990), the first ultrasonic mouse

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  A modern six-degrees-of-freedom (6 DOF) 3D mouse (2007)

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  Mechanism of the modern 6 DOF mouse consisting of infrared LEDs and detectors with occluders that move with the ball

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  The Axsotic 3D-Spheric-Mouse (6D) is the first 3D-Mouse that separates rotation and translation in finger and hand-wrist movements.

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  The Logitech Metaphor, the first wireless mouse (1984). On display at the Musée Bolo, EPFL

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  An older Microsoft wireless mouse made for notebook computers

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  Microsoft Bluetooth Mobile Mouse 3600

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  A wireless Apple mouse

See also

In Spanish: Ratón (informática) para niños