A mousepad or mousemat is a surface for placing and moving a computer mouse. A mousepad enhances the usability of the mouse compared to using a mouse directly on a table by providing a surface to allow it to measure movement accurately and without jitter. Some mousepads increase ergonomics by providing a padded wrist rest.
During a 1967 presentation by Douglas Engelbart marking the public debut of a mouse, [1] Engelbart used a control console designed by Matt P. Brown of Herman Miller that included a keyboard and an inset portion used as a support area for the mouse. [1] [2] According to Kelley [3] and also stated by Alex Pang, [4] Kelley designed the first mousepad a year later, in 1969.
Details of a mousepad designed by Armando M. Fernandez were published in the Xerox Disclosure Journal in 1979 with the description: [5]
CRT Cursor Control Mechanism Pad
To assist the operation of a cathode ray tube pointer 10 wherein a metal ball is rolled on a hard surface, the disclosed pad may be utilized. A resilient, rubber-like material 12 is bonded or otherwise attached to a hard base material 14 which keeps the rubber-like material flat. The base has four rubber-like pads 16 on the opposite side from the resilient material to refrain the pad from sliding on the surface of a table, for instance.— Xerox Disclosure Journal, Volume 4, Number 6, November/December 1979
By 1982, most users of the Xerox ball mouse were using special pads to increase the friction of the ball in the mouse. [6]
The first commercial manufacturer of mousepads was Moustrak, founded by Bob McDermand. The company began gaining traction when Apple decided to distribute its mousepads, featuring the Apple logo, to computer stores in the United States. Moustrak signed licensing deals with Disney, Paramount, and LucasFilm, and advertised in magazines including MacWorld. However, by the end of the 1980s, lower cost mousepads turned the product into a commodity. [7] [8]
The Oxford English Dictionary tracks the term mouse pad to the August 24, 1983, publication of InfoWorld, and the predominantly British term mousemat to October 17, 1989, in the publication 3D. [9]
The three most important benefits of the introduction of the mousepad were higher speed, more precision, and comfort for the user. A secondary benefit was keeping the desk or table surface from being scratched and worn by continuous hand and mouse rubbing motion. Another benefit was reduction of the collection of debris under the mouse, which resulted in reduced jitter of the pointer on the display. Also, it is important to clean mousepads.
The mousepads can be cleaned by special detergents, liquid soap, hand wash or dry cleaning. Not all mousepads are machine washable.
When optical mice, which use image sensors to detect movement, were first introduced into the market, they required special mousepads with optical patterns printed on them. Modern optical mice can function to an acceptable degree of accuracy on plain paper and other surfaces. However, some optical mouse users (especially gamers, designers, and other heavy users) may prefer a mousepad for comfort, speed and accuracy, and to prevent wear to the desk or table surface.
A variety of mousepads exist with many different textured surfaces to fit various types of mouse technologies.
After the steel mouse ball was given a silicone rubber surface, the popular fabric-surface mousepad was found to be the most appropriate. It helped keep the rubberized roller-ball surface cleaner and gave better tracking, speed, and accuracy than just a desk surface. Such surfaces collected dirt which was then deposited onto the internal rollers that picked off ball movement. Dirty rollers caused erratic pointer movement on the screen.
Early types of optical mice have the problem of not working well on transparent or reflective surfaces such as glass or highly polished wood. These surfaces, which often include desk and table surfaces, cause jitter and loss of tracking on the display pointer as the mouse moves over these reflective spots. The use of mousepads with precision surfaces eliminates the spot-jitter effects of older and/or low-quality optical mice.
Newer generations of mouse pads incorporate a wireless charging system into the pad, allowing a wireless mouse to be used without the need to replace or recharge batteries. (ex. Logitech PowerPlay)
Modern mousepads are typically made of lesser density rucomposites (open cell styrene, butadiene rubber or open cell SBR) with fabric bonded to the upper surface. However, many other types of material have been used, including fabric, plastics, recycled rubber tires, neoprene, silicone rubber, leather, glass, cork, wood, aluminum, stone and stainless steel.
A keyset or chorded keyboard is a computer input device that allows the user to enter characters or commands formed by pressing several keys together, like playing a "chord" on a piano. The large number of combinations available from a small number of keys allows text or commands to be entered with one hand, leaving the other hand free. A secondary advantage is that it can be built into a device that is too small to contain a normal-sized keyboard.
A computer mouse is a hand-held pointing device that detects two-dimensional motion relative to a surface. This motion is typically translated into the motion of the pointer on a display, which allows a smooth control of the graphical user interface of a computer.
A graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and visual indicators such as secondary notation. In many applications, GUIs are used instead of text-based UIs, which are based on typed command labels or text navigation. GUIs were introduced in reaction to the perceived steep learning curve of command-line interfaces (CLIs), which require commands to be typed on a computer keyboard.
The history of the graphical user interface, understood as the use of graphic icons and a pointing device to control a computer, covers a five-decade span of incremental refinements, built on some constant core principles. Several vendors have created their own windowing systems based on independent code, but with basic elements in common that define the WIMP "window, icon, menu and pointing device" paradigm.
The technology of computer keyboards includes many elements. Many different keyboard technologies have been developed for consumer demands and optimized for industrial applications. The standard full-size (100%) computer alphanumeric keyboard typically uses 101 to 105 keys; keyboards integrated in laptop computers are typically less comprehensive.
A pointing device is a human interface device that allows a user to input spatial data to a computer. Graphical user interfaces (GUI) and CAD systems allow the user to control and provide data to the computer using physical gestures by moving a hand-held mouse or similar device across the surface of the physical desktop and activating switches on the mouse. Movements of the pointing device are echoed on the screen by movements of the pointer and other visual changes. Common gestures are point and click and drag and drop.
A trackball is a pointing device consisting of a ball held by a socket containing sensors to detect a rotation of the ball about two axes—like an upside-down ball mouse with an exposed protruding ball. Users roll the ball to position the on-screen pointer, using their thumb, fingers, or the palm of the hand, while using the fingertips to press the buttons.
The Xerox Alto is a computer system developed at Xerox PARC in the 1970s. It is considered one of the first workstations or personal computers, and its development pioneered many aspects of modern computing. It features a graphical user interface (GUI), a mouse, Ethernet networking, and the ability to run multiple applications simultaneously. It is one of the first computers to use a WYSIWYG text editor and has a bit-mapped display. The Alto did not succeed commercially, but it had a significant influence on the development of future computer systems.
A graphics tablet is a computer input device that enables a user to hand draw or paint images, animations and graphics, with a special pen-like stylus, similar to the way a person draws pictures with a pencil and paper by hand.
A game controller, gaming controller, or simply controller, is an input device or input/output device used with video games or entertainment systems to provide input to a video game. Input devices that have been classified as game controllers include keyboards, mice, gamepads, and joysticks, as well as special purpose devices, such as steering wheels for driving games and light guns for shooting games. Controllers designs have evolved to include directional pads, multiple buttons, analog sticks, joysticks, motion detection, touch screens and a plethora of other features.
An optical mouse is a computer mouse which uses a miniature camera and digital image processing to detect movement relative to a surface. Variations of the optical mouse have largely replaced the older mechanical mouse and its need for frequent cleaning.
A pointing stick is a small analog stick used as a pointing device typically mounted centrally in a computer keyboard. Like other pointing devices such as mice, touchpads or trackballs, operating system software translates manipulation of the device into movements of the pointer on the computer screen. Unlike other pointing devices, it reacts to sustained force or strain rather than to gross movement, so it is called an "isometric" pointing device. IBM introduced it commercially in 1992 on its laptops under the name "TrackPoint", and patented an improved version of it in 1997. It has been used for business laptops, such as Acer's TravelMate, Dell's Latitude, HP's EliteBook and Lenovo's ThinkPad.
A touchpad or trackpad is a type of pointing device. Its largest component is a tactile sensor: an electronic device with a flat surface, that detects the motion and position of a user's fingers, and translates them to 2D motion, to control a pointer in a graphical user interface on a computer screen. Touchpads are common on laptop computers, contrasted with desktop computers, where mice are more prevalent. Trackpads are sometimes used on desktops, where desk space is scarce. Because trackpads can be made small, they can be found on personal digital assistants (PDAs) and some portable media players. Wireless touchpads are also available, as detached accessories.
Mouse Systems Corporation (MSC), formerly Rodent Associates, was founded in 1982 by Steve Kirsch. The company was responsible for bringing the mouse to the IBM PC for the first time.
William Kirk English was an American computer engineer who contributed to the development of the computer mouse while working for Douglas Engelbart at SRI International's Augmentation Research Center. He would later work for Xerox PARC and Sun Microsystems.
NLS was a revolutionary computer collaboration system developed in the 1960s. It was designed by Douglas Engelbart and implemented by researchers at the Augmentation Research Center (ARC) at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). It was the first computer system to employ the practical use of hypertext links, a computer mouse, raster-scan video monitors, information organized by relevance, screen windowing, presentation programs, and other modern computing concepts. It was funded by ARPA, NASA, and the US Air Force.
IntelliMouse is a series of computer mice from Microsoft. The IntelliMouse series is credited with a number of innovations; Microsoft was among the first mouse vendors to introduce a scroll wheel, an optical mouse, and dedicated auxiliary buttons on the side of the mouse. They use IntelliPoint drivers and its main competitor through the years has been Logitech.
Apple Inc. has designed and manufactured several models of mice, trackpads, and other pointing devices, primarily for use with Macintosh computers. Over the years, Apple has maintained a distinct form and function with its mice that reflect their design languages of that time. Apple's current external pointing devices are the Magic Mouse 2 and Magic Trackpad 2.
A mouse button is an electric switch on a computer mouse which can be pressed (“clicked”) to select or interact with an element of a graphical user interface. Mouse buttons are most commonly implemented as miniature snap-action switches.
In computing, an input device is a piece of equipment used to provide data and control signals to an information processing system, such as a computer or information appliance. Examples of input devices include keyboards, computer mice, scanners, cameras, joysticks, and microphones.
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