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Friday February 2, 2007
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 Does this peripheral look familiar to you? Let me refresh your memory. Back in 1983, Microsoft released the Microsoft Mouse. Packaged with Microsoft Word, it came with three programs: a musicial tutorial, teaching the user how to use a mouse; The Game of Life, a population simulator to familarize users with using a command line; and the Multi-Toll NotePad, text-editing software.
There were two versions available of the Microsoft Mouse: the first was for use with the IBM PC and came with a plug-in board. The other was portable across any MS-DOS system, which utilized low-power CMOS technology. How much did the Microsoft Mouse cost back then? $195! We've got one in the office under lockdown. More images of the MS Mouse on the next page!
 Updated 2/6/07 with more images.
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February 3, 2007 1:27 AM
Wow, look how far mice have come now.
All though it's odd that the Apple mouse is still behind. At least Apple now have two buttoned mice.
How did you get hold of it?
February 3, 2007 9:40 AM
And it has a solid metal ball-bearing ball. Kinda loud when you roll it across your wooden table top.
I still have it stashed somewhere inside my store room, it is the "bus version", i.e. comes with a short card. And yes, it costs amost $200, and a 20MB (megabyte) harddisk was about $400 then?
February 3, 2007 12:44 PM
In 1989 i was working for Microsoft. I did telephone support for the mouse among other things. I know too much MS Mouse trivia, as well as still having a budle of old mice of varying ages. They also released a special edition mouse for a while that was the same shape as that but had red buttons.
At the time I was doing support, the mouse was sold with some third party paint program that MS had bought cheaply. Most people considered that they were buying the paint program and it came with a mouse as a bonus. This was a nightmare for support, as the version of the paint program was an extremely limited version, and most people didn't really know what to do with a mouse.
February 3, 2007 1:57 PM
*looks at Matt's comment, looks at Apple Mighty Mouse, raises eyebrow*
February 3, 2007 9:30 PM
Strange, in that the version of the green-eyed mouse that sits here at home has a parallel type port connector - not the mini-serial as shown.
Hmmmm, wonder if I should sell the thing...
February 3, 2007 10:14 PM
One is up on eBay currently; pretty steep starting price.
eBay item #170077862312
February 4, 2007 2:58 AM
Sigh... I miss those days...
February 4, 2007 11:09 AM
Matt, the Apple mouse isn't behind... OS X is just an example of a user interface that only needs one button.
Anyway, everyone knows real men need a 3 button mouse. :)
February 4, 2007 2:11 PM
Everybody knows that real men don't need mice...
Penguins rule.
February 5, 2007 5:31 AM
You guys should complain... I still remember the old tag-line "Patience is a 1541 disk drive", and I thought the damn things were fast as hell compared to the old Data Tape drive I HAD been using...
February 28, 2007 1:36 PM
I think it is bad because I sad so.
April 23, 2007 12:39 PM
@Matt Lee
The interface does need two buttons, just like it has now :) Before to get a context menu you had to either hold the button down or hold control and click. They finally caved in because it is needed.
The hockey puck mouse was a failure, and horrible in terms of ergonomics.
May 14, 2007 8:31 PM
I've got one, too, mint, but it is a serial version with a DB25 (!) connector. Still works - I tried it out on XP a few months ago. Don't know if Vista still supports serial mice though. 100 dpi, and yes the metal ball has no traction on Formica®.
-N.