deskthority

I've been having fun posting some of my vintage keyboards lately and decided I can't forget about my mice so... Here's my Microsoft "Green Eyed" Mouse so named after the two green buttons. This is the 25 pin serial model. There is also another 9 pin model but it is NOT serial. It has a bus interface card that is usually separated from it.

You will notice the steel balls on the bottom. There are four in total on the bottom. Two smaller steel balls are up front and one is in the far back for excellent travel. The larger steel ball in the middle does the cursor movement as most of the later rubber balls would do.

Someone had posted a Microsoft mouse previously claiming it was the "green eyed" mouse. It was not. That is the second generation (got that one too).

Here are some pics:

Cool, how old is this?

The "Green Eyed" mouse is Microsoft's first mouse. It came out in 1983.

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/ ... spx?id=134

Haha! It's funky!
I can only imagine the noise it makes rolling on the desk!

Here's an ad from BYTE, Oct. 1983:
The first mouse I ever bought was for the Colour Computer in 1985. It had a steel ball and was made in Japan.
I took it back to the store for a refund because there wasn't any software to actually use the mouse.

The ball is interesting without the rubber coating.

I remember you used to be able to get higher end mice with balls with a carbon coating rather than the standard rubber, apparently they help with smoothness, i used to WD-40 my ball so it was nice and slippy.

Pretty sweet! Thank you for sharing! I always though little balls would do better for travel than some sort of 'slippery' pad--looks like I was right.