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First Trackball is made
As it wasn't quite a mouse, Tom Crampton and Fred Longstaff invented this trackball for the Canadian army. It used a canadian 5-pin bowling ball and detected how much the ball was rotated. This mechanism is used alot in non-optical trackball mic, but also occasionally used in arcade machines. This device truely had a major impact on computer based devices in latter half of the century.
[Source: http://www.maximumpc.com/13-stages-in-the-evolution-of-the-mouse/] -
The First Mouse is made
This mouse, made by Douglas Engelbart, used 2 wheels facing perpendicular to detect movement, it had one button, and had a wooden case.
[Source: http://www.maximumpc.com/13-stages-in-the-evolution-of-the-mouse/] -
The Xerox Alto I Mouse innovates a ball and more buttons
This mouse, made in XEROX PARC, added a steel ball to the assembly, making the movement for the mouse significantly easier. It had 3 buttons, and was built for the Xerox Alto, a personal computer.
[Source: http://www.maximumpc.com/13-stages-in-the-evolution-of-the-mouse/] -
The first wireless mouse is innovated into existance
Logitech produces the mouseman cordless, which uses a minature modem to "wirelessly" transmit mouse controls.
[Source: http://www.maximumpc.com/13-stages-in-the-evolution-of-the-mouse/] -
The Scroll-Wheel is born
Eric Michelman produced the Genius Easyscroll, which first implemented a scroll wheel.The scroll wheel was rather large, and the mouse itself generally large and clunky, it was later redesigned to be more ergonamicly correct, and the scrollwheel was shrunk in later mice
[Source: http://www.maximumpc.com/13-stages-in-the-evolution-of-the-mouse/]
