When did the ball in the mouse disappear?

Have you seen this little ball inside a mouse?

The small ball inside the mechanical mouse, Image source: Wikipedia

Many friends born in the 80s and 90s may still have an impression of this ball.
Just turn the early computer mouse over and slightly twist the knob at the bottom, and a small ball like this will fall out. During computer classes, teachers had to compete with students who secretly took the ball out of the mouse to play with it. Internet cafe owners must have had such trauma.

In fact, such a ball has been on the mouse for decades. Going back further, people even stuffed bowling balls directly into the "old predecessors" of the mouse. How can a bowling ball fit into a mouse? Why is it so rare to see this little ball today? Let's talk about it below.

Bowling ball as a mouse?

If you search for "earliest mouse", you will most likely find this mouse, which was developed in 1964 and patented in 1967. This thing that looks a bit like a collectible doesn't look like it could fit into a bowling ball.

SRI prototype mouse, Image source: Wikipedia

In fact, about 20 years before the birth of this mouse, the "predecessor" of the mouse was born, and this predecessor was called "trackball". In the mid-1940s, the British Navy was developing an integrated display system, which was part of the radar mapping system.

At that time, people needed to mark some important information on the display of the radar system. In the process, people developed something called a "rolling ball". After all, if you want to move and mark on a 360-degree map, a spherical object is particularly suitable.

But later, when this system was put into production, it still used an aircraft joystick. After all, the joystick can also rotate the mark 360 degrees, and it is more ready-made and does not require special research and development and production.

Later, in the early 1950s, the Canadian Navy also wanted to build its own battlefield information system. After visiting and studying in the UK, they began to develop their own system DATAR in 1952. In DATAR, the input system used by the Canadians was the trackball.

For example, the picture shows the trackball in the DATAR system. In the middle of this device is a standard "5-pin bowling ball". This bowling ball is smaller than a normal bowling ball, with a diameter of about 12 cm, which is just right for the operating table.

Trackball used in Canada's "DATAR" system, Image source: Reference 1

Since such projects were military secrets, this trackball system was not patented. But it is the predecessor of the later roller ball mouse and today's trackball mouse.

The earliest patented mouse

In the 1960s, Douglas Engelbart and Bill English invented a "mouse" that functioned similarly to the modern mouse.

At the time, Engelbart was working at SRI, and he needed to explore how to improve hardware devices to enhance the capabilities of computers. He hoped to use an external device to work with the keyboard to better move the cursor for input.

English later joined SRI and worked with Engelbart to complete the prototype, which was patented in 1967. The prototype was officially called "Display System XY Position Indicator," but Engelbart and English gave the device a simpler name, "mouse," and the name of the mouse was born.

Screenshot of the patent for "Display System XY Position Indicator", Image source: Reference 2

In 1968, Engelbart conducted a public demonstration of various human-computer interaction functions, including the mouse, video conferencing, and windows. These technologies, which are commonplace today, were very new at the time, and even had some sci-fi connotations. Although many of the products demonstrated at the time did not become popular immediately, they left a deep impression on people.

Ball in the mouse

While Engelbart's team was developing the "Display System XY Position Indicator," a team in Germany was also developing a similar device, which was inspired by the trackballs used in early radar stations.

Germany's RKS100-86, Image source: Wikipedia

In 1966, German engineer Rainer Mallebrein had an idea after seeing a trackball. He thought that if the track was reversed, it could be made into a more convenient input device. Based on this idea, Mallebrein's team invented the RKS100-86, which was very similar to the later popular ball mouse.

RKS100-86 bottom image, source: Reference 3

However, the German Patent Office did not grant the patent at the time. In a later interview, inventor Malebryn said that they also tried to apply for a patent at the time, but the patent office did not accept the application because the patent office believed that "the mechanical improvement of RKS100-86 was not significant enough."

Although the patent application was not successful, the RKS100-86 is considered the earliest mouse with a roller ball. In the 1970s and 1980s, more and more roller ball mice appeared.

In 1973, Xerox's Alto computer was born. It was one of the earliest computers for personal use and was equipped with a roller ball mouse.

The back of the mouse used by Alto (with three balls), Image source: Wikipedia

In 1984, Apple released the Macintosh 128k, a Macintosh computer for the mass consumer market. At that time, this computer was also equipped with a roller ball mouse.

The roller ball mouse of the early Macintosh computer. Image source: screenshot from eBay

With the popularization of personal computers in the 1980s and 1990s, scrolling mice entered thousands of households and almost became standard equipment at the time.

Optical mouse is born

But today, most mice on the market no longer have the ball. The disappearance of the ball is related to the development of optical mice.

In fact, as early as 1980, Steve Kirsch of MIT developed an optical mouse. This mouse no longer controls the cursor by detecting the movement of the ball, but is controlled by the infrared LED light and infrared sensor inside the mouse plus a special mouse pad.

Infrared mouse and special mouse pad, Image source: Wikipedia

That's right, this mouse can only be used on a special mouse pad, and if the mouse pad is placed in the wrong direction, the mouse will not be able to work properly. This is quite inconvenient compared to the roller ball mouse at the time. Moreover, there is the problem of erratic positioning due to wear and tear of the mouse pad.

Also in 1980, Richard Lyon of Xerox invented a mouse based on an optical sensor. The mouse was equipped with a 16-pixel visible light image sensor.
Simply put, the working principle of this mouse is to take quick photos of the area under the mouse as it moves, and determine the movement of the mouse by comparing the differences between the photos.

But the resolution of 16 pixels is too low, and to process higher resolution images, a chip with more powerful processing power needs to be built in, which was relatively expensive in the early 1980s.

By the end of the 1990s, Microsoft and HP (later spun off as Agilent) began to release their own optical mice. Although optical mice were more expensive than mechanical mice at the time, they began to occupy their own market because they could be used on most surfaces and did not require the mouse ball to be taken out from time to time for cleaning like mechanical mice.
However, **ordinary LED optical mice have a defect, that is, they cannot be used on particularly smooth surfaces or glass desktops. **If you have used early optical mice, you may have had such an experience that early optical mice are easy to "float" when used on particularly smooth desktops.

Another type of optical mouse can solve this problem.

In the late 1990s, laser mice began to appear. Laser mice use lasers instead of LED light sources for illumination, which can significantly increase the resolution of captured images, which can increase the sensitivity (DPI) of the mouse. By the beginning of the 21st century, laser mice have become more versatile and can work on almost all types of surfaces (including glass).

Currently, the main types of optical mice that we can buy online are those based on LED light or laser. If you are just buying a mouse for daily office use, the difference between the two types of mice is not that big. The only thing to note is that if your desktop is very smooth, or you often work on a glass desktop, it is recommended to use a laser mouse.

Of course, you can also find "trackball mice" based on roller balls on the market. But in general, trackball mice are more expensive than optical mice. If you want to experience the feeling of the "ancestor" mouse, you can also try this type of mouse. A suitable trackball, combined with the correct usage posture, can reduce some of the burden on the wrist and shoulders. After all, you only need to move your fingers.

What else can the mouse be used to control in the future?

Since the birth of the mouse, there have been mechanical mice (including trackballs), LED mice, and laser mice. Is it possible that other types of mice will appear in the future?

Of course it is possible.

For example, inertial sensors can detect motion parameters such as acceleration, rotation, tilt, etc. Our mobile phones all have such sensors, and these parameters can also help the mouse determine the movement status.

In addition, in 2021, an article in MIT Technology Review mentioned the use of brain-computer interfaces to assist people with disabilities in manipulating the mouse and keyboard. When this technology matures, it will not only help people with disabilities use electronic devices better, but it may also be applied to ordinary people's lives and provide convenience for our lives.