20 Years Ago, Microsoft Changed How We Mouse Forever

Twenty years ago , in April 1999 , Microsoft bring in an update to its IntelliMouse line of input equipment . On top it did n’t look much unlike than its predecessors — it still had a few buttons and a scroll wheel — but underneath it introduced a technology to the masses that brought an end to the prehistoric daytime of make clean dirt and dirty out of information processing system mouse .

I was a third - year college student at that point , and my digital media programme had me spending endless minute in Photoshop , version 5.5 , purchased with a much - welcomed student discount . My classes were n’t text edition dependent , which result money for pricey picture - editing software , and a desktop workstation that while brawny at the sentence , would be ridiculous today ( 16 MB of RAM sister ! ) . What was n’t in the budget was a fancy Wacom tablet , which was still primarily targeted at professionals with budgets that could open such luxuries . I was stuck using a mouse , which at the clip relied on an archaic golosh - coated metal lump to translate my hand motions to the pointer on the screen .

If you did any pixel labor two decades ago , you could in all probability already relate to this injury I ’m opening . My mouse exercise as design , but the downside of that hard orchis dragging around is that it peck up dirt , which accumulated inside the gimmick , gumming up the sensors and rapidly make the hardware — and my pointer — to comport erratically . It frustrated me to no last . I would find myself have to clean it every 15 minutes while work on late into the night on a project , and even call off my desk clean , or swapping out mouse pads every few days failed to palliate the problem . The subtle mouse movements require for detailed Photoshop work did n’t read , and on more than one function , I will admit to repeatedly mosh the mouse down on my desk in frustration . ( That always fixes tech return , good ? )

Photo: Microsoft

All that changed on April 14 , 1999 , when at the COMDEX expo in Las Vegas , a now - defunct trade show standardised totoday ’s CES , Microsoft announced its IntelliMouse Explorer : a mouse that traded the dirt sucking pealing ball for LED and a digital camera that could optically track the mouse ’s drive with extreme preciseness .

I do n’t remember where I first hear about the IntelliMouse Explorer — there ’s a good chance it bulge out up in an issue of Popular Science at the sentence — but when it was released a few calendar month by and by in October , I was one of the first in blood to get one . At $ 75 , and well over $ 100 here in Canada , it was exceedingly expensive for a computer computer mouse , but at that point , I would have chip in up a kidney for the upgrade .

Microsoft was far from the first company to incorporate optical tracking into a shiner . The approach shot date back as far as 1980 when a pair of inventors came up with two unlike approaches to tracking mouse movements through imaging . The engineering first became commercially available with theXerox STAR billet computer in 1981 , but with a $ 16,500 price tag — the eq of over $ 45,000 today — it was a patronage - only machine . X later , fellowship like Sun Microsystems included optical maser - powered mouse with its as dear servers and workstation , but special reflective mouse pads were often required to apply them . The average consumer does n’t want to have to jump through those hoops .

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

establish on technology developed by Hewlett - Packard , Microsoft ’s IntelliMouse Explorer arrived with a price tag that could be free by even immediate payment - strapped students like me . Even well , the undersurface of the mouse was completely sealed , preventing even the tiniest speck of crap from diffuse its interior , and it improved on its predecessors by act on almost any surface that was n’t too reflective . I call up receive back to my dormitory room and plug away in the Explorer for the first time , wondering who had a rig fancy enough to use the admit PS2 to USB adapter . There were undoubtedly a few driver installation hiccups along the manner , but once Windows 98 was happy , I fired up Photoshop and strapped in for the still mouse experience I ’d ever had . Problem solved .

In addition to that secret plan - convert optical sensor , the IntelliMouse Explorer also precede a couple of spare programmable buttons which seemed unneeded to me at first , but it soon became an indispensable direction to browse the entanglement , letting me quickly derail forwards and back between internet site . ( Tabs had n’t been invented yet . ) It did n’t take long for Microsoft ’s rival to keep up with optical mouse of their own . Apple ’s arrived the year after in 2000 , and in 2004 , Logitech introduced a mouse powered by lasers . Extra buttons — lots of them — would eventually become the industry average , and company would soon find themselves competing with each other to see who could introduce themost precise optical tracking technologyto appeal to picky PC gamers .

I can count on my finger the turn of times a technology has thoroughly improved my lifespan — more often than not they run to complicate thing as well . ( I ’m looking at you , iPhone . ) But 20 years later , the IntelliMouse Explorer is an rising slope that change everything without any downside .

William Duplessie