computer mouse this article is about the item of computer hardware for the pointer it controls see pointer user interface a computer mouse with the most common features two buttons left and right and a scroll wheel which can also act as a third button a computer mouse is a handheld pointing device that detects twodimensional motion relative to a surface this motion is typically translated into the motion of a pointer on a display which allows a smooth control of the graphical user interface the first public demonstration of a mouse controlling a computer system was in 1968 originally wired to a computer many modern mice are cordless relying on shortrange radio communication with the connected system mice originally used a ball rolling on a surface to detect motion but modern mice often have optical sensors that have no moving parts in addition to moving a cursor computer mice have one or more buttons to allow operations such as selection of a menu item on a display mice often also feature other elements such as touch surfaces and wheels which enable additional control and dimensional input naming the earliest known publication of the term mouse as referring to a computer pointing device is in bill englishs july 1965 publication computeraided display control likely originating from its resemblance to the shape and size of a mouse a rodent with the cord resembling its tail the plural for the small rodent is always mice in modern usage the plural of a computer mouse is mouses and mice according to most dictionaries but mice being more common the term computer mouses may be used informally in some cases although the plural of mouse small rodent is mice the two words have undergone a differentiation through usage history the trackball a related pointing device was invented in 1946 by ralph benjamin as part of a postworld war iiera firecontrol radar plotting system called comprehensive display system cds benjamin was then working for the british royal navy scientific service benjamins project used analog computers to calculate the future position of target aircraft based on several initial input points provided by a user with a joystick benjamin felt that a more elegant input device was needed and invented what they called a roller ball for this purpose the device was patented in 1947 another early trackball was built by british electrical engineer kenyon taylor in collaboration with tom cranston and fred longstaff taylor was part of the original ferranti canada working on the royal canadian navys datar digital automated tracking and resolving system in 1952 datar was similar in concept to benjamins display the trackball used four disks to pick up motion two each for the x and y directions several rollers provided mechanical support when the ball was rolled the pickup discs spun and contacts on their outer rim made periodic contact with wires producing pulses of output with each movement of the ball by counting the pulses the physical movement of the ball could be determined a digital computer calculated the tracks and sent the resulting data to other ships in a task force using pulsecode modulation radio signals this trackball used a standard canadian fivepin bowling ball it was not patented since it was a secret military project early mouse patents from left to right opposing track wheels by engelbart november 1970 us patent 3541541 ball and wheel by rider september 1974 us patent 3835464 ball and two rollers with spring by opocensky october 1976 us patent 3987685 douglas engelbart of the stanford research institute now sri international has been credited in published books by thierry bardini by 1963 engelbart had already established a research lab at sri the augmentation research center arc to pursue his objective of developing both hardware and software computer technology to augment human intelligence that november while attending a conference on computer graphics in reno nevada engelbart began to ponder how to adapt the underlying principles of the planimeter to xy coordinate input in 1964 bill english joined arc where he helped engelbart build the first mouse prototype inventor douglas engelbart holding the first computer mouse showing the wheels that make contact with the working surface the engelbart mouse several other experimental pointingdevices developed for engelbarts online system nls exploited different body movements for example headmounted devices attached to the chin or nose but ultimately the mouse won out because of its speed and convenience at the time of the mother of all demos engelbarts group had been using their second generation 3button mouse for about a year on october 2 1968 a mouse device named rollkugel german for rolling ball was described as an optional device for its sig100 terminal was developed by the german company telefunken vector graphics terminal the ballbased computer mouse with a telefunken rollkugel rks 10086 for the tr 86 computer system when the development for the telefunken main frame tr 440 telefunken considered the invention too unimportant to apply for a patent on it the xerox alto was one of the first computers designed for individual use in 1973 and is regarded as the first modern computer to utilize a mouse inspired by parcs alto the lilith a computer which had been developed by a team around niklaus wirth at eth zrich between 1978 and 1980 provided a mouse as well the third marketed version of an integrated mouse shipped as a part of a computer and intended for personal computer navigation came with the xerox 8010 star in 1981 by 1982 the xerox 8010 was probably the bestknown computer with a mouse the sun1 also came with a mouse and the forthcoming apple lisa was rumored to use one but the peripheral remained obscure jack hawley of the mouse house reported that one buyer for a large organization believed at first that his company sold lab mice hawley who manufactured mice for xerox stated that practically i have the market all to myself right now a hawley mouse cost 415 and of the amiga 1000 and the atari st in 1985 operation further information point and click a mouse typically controls the motion of a pointer in two dimensions in a graphical user interface gui the mouse turns movements of the hand backward and forward left and right into equivalent electronic signals that in turn are used to move the pointer the relative movements of the mouse on the surface are applied to the position of the pointer on the screen which signals the point where actions of the user take place so hand movements are replicated by the pointer clicking or hovering stopping movement while the cursor is within the bounds of an area can select files programs or actions from a list of names or in graphical interfaces through small images called icons and other elements for example a text file might be represented by a picture of a paper notebook and clicking while the cursor hovers this icon might cause a text editing program to open the file in a window different ways of operating the mouse cause specific things to happen in the gui click pressing and releasing a button left singleclick clicking the main button left doubleclick clicking the button two times in quick succession counts as a different gesture than two separate single clicks left tripleclick clicking the button three times in quick succession counts as a different gesture than three separate single clicks triple clicks are far less common in traditional navigation rightclick clicking the secondary button or clicking with two fingers this brings a menu with different options depending on the software middleclick clicking the tertiary button drag and drop pressing and holding a button then moving the mouse without releasing using the command drag with the right mouse button instead of just drag when one instructs a user to drag an object while holding the right mouse button down instead of the more commonly used left mouse button mouse button chording aka rocker navigation combination of rightclick then leftclick combination of leftclick then rightclick or keyboard letter combination of left or rightclick and the mouse wheel clicking while holding down a modifier key moving the pointer a long distance when a practical limit of mouse movement is reached one lifts up the mouse brings it to the opposite edge of the working area while it is held above the surface and then replaces it down onto the working surface this is often not necessary because acceleration software detects fast movement and moves the pointer significantly faster in proportion than for slow mouse motion multitouch this method is similar to a multitouch trackpad on a laptop with support for tap input for multiple fingers the most famous example being the apple magic mouse mouse gestures pointing device gesture users can also employ mice gesturally meaning that a stylized motion of the mouse cursor itself called a gesture can issue a command or map to a specific action for example in a drawing program moving the mouse in a rapid x motion over a shape might delete the shape gestural interfaces occur more rarely than plain pointingandclicking and people often find them more difficult to use because they require finer motor control from the user however a few gestural conventions have become widespread including the drag and drop gesture in which the user presses the mouse button while the mouse cursor hovers over an interface object the user moves the cursor to a different location while holding the button down the user releases the mouse button for example a user might draganddrop a picture representing a file onto a picture of a trash can thus instructing the system to delete the file standard semantic gestures include crossingbased goal drag and drop menu traversal pointing rollover mouseover selection specific uses other uses of the mouses input occur commonly in special applicationdomains in interactive threedimensional graphics the mouses motion often translates directly into changes in the virtual objects or cameras orientation for example in the firstperson shooter genre of games see below players usually employ the mouse to control the direction in which the virtual players head faces moving the mouse up will cause the player to look up revealing the view above the players head a related function makes an image of an object rotate so that all sides can be examined 3d design and animation software often modally chords many different combinations to allow objects and cameras to be rotated and moved through space with the few axes of movement mice can detect when mice have more than one button the software may assign different functions to each button often the primary leftmost in a righthanded configuration button on the mouse will select items and the secondary rightmost in a righthanded button will bring up a menu of alternative actions applicable to that item for example on platforms with more than one button the mozilla web browser will follow a link in response to a primary button click will bring up a contextual menu of alternative actions for that link in response to a secondarybutton click and will often open the link in a new tab or window in response to a click with the tertiary middle mouse button variants mechanical mice operating an optomechanical mouse moving the mouse turns the ball x and y rollers grip the ball and transfer movement optical encoding disks include light holes infrared leds shine through the disks sensors gather light pulses to convert to x and y vectors the german company telefunken published on their early ball mouse on 2 october 1968 the ball mouse replaced the external wheels with a single ball that could rotate in any direction it came as part of the hardware package of the xerox alto computer perpendicular chopper wheels housed inside the mouses body chopped beams of light on the way to light sensors thus detecting in their turn the motion of the ball this variant of the mouse resembled an inverted trackball and became the predominant form used with personal computers throughout the 1980s and 1990s the xerox parc group also settled on the modern technique of using both hands to type on a fullsize keyboard and grabbing the mouse when required mechanical mouse shown with the top cover removed the scroll wheel is gray to the right of the ball the ball mouse has two freely rotating rollers these are located 90 degrees apart one roller detects the forwardbackward motion of the mouse and other the leftright motion opposite the two rollers is a third one white in the photo at 45 degrees that is springloaded to push the ball against the other two rollers each roller is on the same shaft as an encoder wheel that has slotted edges the slots interrupt infrared light beams to generate electrical pulses that represent wheel movement each wheels disc has a pair of light beams located so that a given beam becomes interrupted or again starts to pass light freely when the other beam of the pair is about halfway between changes simple logic circuits interpret the relative timing to indicate which direction the wheel is rotating this incremental rotary encoder scheme is sometimes called quadrature encoding of the wheel rotation as the two optical sensors produce signals that are in approximately quadrature phase the mouse sends these signals to the computer system via the mouse cable directly as logic signals in very old mice such as the xerox mice and via a dataformatting ic in modern mice the driver software in the system converts the signals into motion of the mouse cursor along x and y axes on the computer screen hawley mark ii mice from the mouse house the ball is mostly steel with a precision spherical rubber surface the weight of the ball given an appropriate working surface under the mouse provides a reliable grip so the mouses movement is transmitted accurately ball mice and wheel mice were manufactured for xerox by jack hawley doing business as the mouse house in berkeley california starting in 1975 modern computer mice took form at the cole polytechnique fdrale de lausanne epfl under the inspiration of professor jeandaniel nicoud and at the hands of engineer and watchmaker andr guignard another type of mechanical mouse the analog mouse now generally regarded as obsolete uses potentiometers rather than encoder wheels and is typically designed to be plug compatible with an analog joystick the color mouse originally marketed by radioshack for their color computer but also usable on msdos machines equipped with analog joystick ports provided the software accepted joystick input was the bestknown example optical and laser mice the underside of an optical mouse optical mouse optical mice rely entirely on one or more lightemitting diodes leds and an imaging array of photodiodes to detect movement relative to the underlying surface eschewing the internal moving parts a mechanical mouse uses in addition to its optics a laser mouse is an optical mouse that uses coherent laser light the earliest optical mice detected movement on preprinted mousepad surfaces whereas the modern led optical mouse works on most opaque diffuse surfaces it is usually unable to detect movement on specular surfaces like polished stone laser diodes are also used for better resolution and precision improving performance on opaque specular surfaces battery powered wireless optical mice flash the led intermittently to save power and only glow steadily when movement is detected inertial and gyroscopic mice often called air mice since they do not require a surface to operate inertial mice use a tuning fork or other accelerometer us patent 4787051 to detect rotary movement for every axis supported the most common models manufactured by logitech and gyration work using 2 degrees of rotational freedom and are insensitive to spatial translation the user requires only small wrist rotations to move the cursor reducing user fatigue or gorilla arm usually cordless they often have a switch to deactivate the movement circuitry between use allowing the user freedom of movement without affecting the cursor position a patent for an inertial mouse claims that such mice consume less power than optically based mice and offer increased sensitivity reduced weight and increased easeofuse in combination with a wireless keyboard an inertial mouse can offer alternative ergonomic arrangements which do not require a flat work surface potentially alleviating some types of repetitive motion injuries related to workstation posture 3d mice spaceball redirects here for other uses see spaceball disambiguation also known as bats despite a certain appeal it was finally discontinued because it did not provide sufficient resolution one example of a 2000s consumer 3d pointing device is the wii remote while primarily a motionsensing device that is it can determine its orientation and direction of movement wii remote can also detect its spatial position by comparing the distance and position of the lights from the ir emitter using its integrated ir camera since the nunchuk accessory lacks a camera it can only tell its current heading and orientation the obvious drawback to this approach is that it can only produce spatial coordinates while its camera can see the sensor bar more accurate consumer devices have since been released including the playstation move the razer hydra and the controllers part of the htc vive virtual reality system all of these devices can accurately detect position and orientation in 3d space regardless of angle relative to the sensor station a mouserelated controller called the spaceball logitech spacemouse 3d on display at the bolo computer museum epfl lausanne silicon graphics spaceball model 1003 1988 allowing manipulation of objects with six degrees of freedom logitech 3d mouse 1990 the first ultrasonic mouse tactile mice in 2000 logitech introduced a tactile mouse that contained a small actuator to make the mouse vibrate such a mouse can augment userinterfaces with haptic feedback such as giving feedback when crossing a window boundary to surf by touch requires the user to be able to feel depth or hardness this ability was realized with the first electrorheological tactile mice but never marketed pucks tablet digitizers are sometimes used with accessories called pucks devices which rely on absolute positioning but can be configured for sufficiently mouselike relative tracking that they are sometimes marketed as mice ergonomic mice a vertical mouse as the name suggests this type of mouse is intended to provide optimum comfort and avoid injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome arthritis and other repetitive strain injuries it is designed to fit natural hand position and movements to reduce discomfort when holding a typical mouse ulna and radius bones on the arm are crossed some designs attempt to place the palm more vertically so the bones take more natural parallel position keyboard with roller bar mouse another solution is a pointing bar device the socalled roller bar mouse is positioned snugly in front of the keyboard thus allowing bimanual accessibility gaming mice these mice are specifically designed for use in computer games they typically employ a wide array of controls and buttons and have designs that differ radically from traditional mice it is also common for gaming mice especially those designed for use in realtime strategy games such as starcraft or in multiplayer online battle arena games such as dota 2 to have a relatively high sensitivity measured in dots per inch dpi palm grip the hand rests on the mouse with extended fingers claw grip palm rests on the mouse bent fingers fingertip grip bent fingers palm doesnt touch the mouse connectivity and communication protocols a microsoft wireless arc mouse marketed as travelfriendly and foldable but otherwise operated exactly like other 3button wheelbased optical mice to transmit their input typical cabled mice use a thin electrical cord terminating in a standard connector such as rs232c ps2 adb or usb cordless mice instead transmit data via infrared radiation see irda or radio including bluetooth although many such cordless interfaces are themselves connected through the aforementioned wired serial buses while the electrical interface and the format of the data transmitted by commonly available mice is currently standardized on usb in the past it varied between different manufacturers a bus mouse used a dedicated interface card for connection to an ibm pc or compatible computer mouse use in dos applications became more common after the introduction of the microsoft mouse largely because microsoft provided an open standard for communication between applications and mouse driver software thus any application written to use the microsoft standard could use a mouse with a driver that implements the same api even if the mouse hardware itself was incompatible with microsofts this driver provides the state of the buttons and the distance the mouse has moved in units that its documentation calls mickeys early mice signals xa and xb in quadrature convey xdirection motion while ya and yb convey ydimension motion here the pointer cursor is shown drawing a small curve in the 1970s the xerox alto mouse and in the 1980s the xerox optical mouse used a quadratureencoded x and y interface this twobit encoding per dimension had the property that only one bit of the two would change at a time like a gray code or johnson counter so that the transitions would not be misinterpreted when asynchronously sampled the earliest massmarket mice such as on the original macintosh amiga and atari st mice used a dsubminiature 9pin connector to send the quadratureencoded x and y axis signals directly plus one pin per mouse button the mouse was a simple optomechanical device and the decoding circuitry was all in the main computer the de9 connectors were designed to be electrically compatible with the joysticks popular on numerous 8bit systems such as the commodore 64 and the atari 2600 although the ports could be used for both purposes the signals must be interpreted differently as a result plugging a mouse into a joystick port causes the joystick to continuously move in some direction even if the mouse stays still whereas plugging a joystick into a mouse port causes the mouse to only be able to move a single pixel in each direction serial interface and protocol because the ibm pc did not have a quadrature decoder built in early pc mice used the rs232c serial port to communicate encoded mouse movements as well as provide power to the mouses circuits the mouse systems corporation version used a fivebyte protocol and supported three buttons the microsoft version used a threebyte protocol and supported two buttons due to the incompatibility between the two protocols some manufacturers sold serial mice with a mode switch pc for msc mode ms for microsoft mode apple desktop bus apple macintosh plus mice beige mouse left platinum mouse right 1986 in 1986 apple first implemented the apple desktop bus allowing the daisychaining together of up to 16 devices including arbitrarily many mice and other devices on the same bus with no configuration whatsoever featuring only a single data pin the bus used a purely polled approach to computermouse communications and survived as the standard on mainstream models including a number of nonapple workstations until 1998 when imac joined the industrywide switch to using usb beginning with the bronze keyboard powerbook g3 in may 1999 apple dropped the external adb port in favor of usb but retained an internal adb connection in the powerbook g4 for communication with its builtin keyboard and trackpad until early 2005 ps2 interface and protocol further information ps2 connector colorcoded ps2 connection ports purple for keyboard and green for mouse with the arrival of the ibm ps2 personalcomputer series in 1987 ibm introduced the eponymous ps2 interface for mice and keyboards which other manufacturers rapidly adopted the most visible change was the use of a round 6pin minidin in lieu of the former 5pin connector in default mode called stream mode a ps2 mouse communicates motion and the state of each button by means of 3byte packets for any motion button press or button release event a ps2 mouse sends over a bidirectional serial port a sequence of three bytes with the following format bit 7 bit 6 bit 5 bit 4 bit 3 bit 2 bit 1 bit 0 byte 1 yv xv ys xs 1 mb rb lb byte 2 x movement byte 3 y movement here xs and ys represent the sign bits of the movement vectors xv and yv indicate an overflow in the respective vector component and lb mb and rb indicate the status of the left middle and right mouse buttons 1 pressed ps2 mice also understand several commands for reset and selftest switching between different operating modes and changing the resolution of the reported motion vectors a microsoft intellimouse relies on an extension of the ps2 protocol the imps2 or imps2 protocol the abbreviation combines the concepts of intellimouse and ps2 it initially operates in standard ps2 format for backwards compatibility after the host sends a special command sequence it switches to an extended format in which a fourth byte carries information about wheel movements the intellimouse explorer works analogously with the difference that its 4byte packets also allow for two additional buttons for a total of five mouse vendors also use other extended formats often without providing public documentation the typhoon mouse uses 6byte packets which can appear as a sequence of two standard 3byte packets such that an ordinary ps2 driver can handle them for 3d or 6degreeoffreedom input vendors have made many extensions both to the hardware and to software in the late 1990s logitech created ultrasound based tracking which gave 3d input to a few millimeters accuracy which worked well as an input device but failed as a profitable product in 2008 motion4u introduced its optiburst system using ir tracking for use as a maya graphics software plugin usb the industrystandard usb universal serial bus protocol and its connector have become widely used for mice it is among the most popular types cordless or wireless cordless or wireless mice transmit data via infrared radiation see irda or radio including bluetooth and wifi the receiver is connected to the computer through a serial or usb port or can be built in as is sometimes the case with bluetooth and wifi modern nonbluetooth and nonwifi wireless mice use usb receivers some of these can be stored inside the mouse for safe transport while not in use while other newer mice use newer nano receivers designed to be small enough to remain plugged into a laptop during transport while still being large enough to easily remove the logitech metaphor the first wireless mouse 1984 on display at the muse bolo epfl a microsoft wireless mouse made for notebook computers microsoft bluetooth mobile mouse 3600 multiplemouse systems some systems allow two or more mice to be used at once as input devices late1980s era home computers such as the amiga used this to allow computer games with two players interacting on the same computer lemmings and the settlers for example the same idea is sometimes used in collaborative software eg to simulate a whiteboard that multiple users can draw on without passing a single mouse around microsoft windows since windows 98 has supported multiple simultaneous pointing devices because windows only provides a single screen cursor using more than one device at the same time requires cooperation of users or applications designed for multiple input devices multiple mice are often used in multiuser gaming in addition to specially designed devices that provide several input interfaces windows also has full support for multiple inputmouse configurations for multiuser environments starting with windows xp microsoft introduced a sdk for developing applications that allow multiple input devices to be used at the same time with independent cursors and independent input points the introduction of vista and microsoft surface now known as microsoft pixelsense introduced a new set of input apis that were adopted into windows 7 allowing for 50 pointscursors all controlled by independent users the new input points provide traditional mouse input however they were designed with other input technologies like touch and image in mind they inherently offer 3d coordinates along with pressure size tilt angle mask and even an image bitmap to see and recognize the input pointobject on the screen as of 2009 linux distributions and other operating systems that use xorg such as opensolaris and freebsd support 255 cursorsinput points through multipointer x however currently no window managers support multipointer x leaving it relegated to custom software usage there have also been propositions of having a single operator use two mice simultaneously as a more sophisticated means of controlling various graphics and multimedia applications buttons mouse button mouse buttons are microswitches which can be pressed to select or interact with an element of a graphical user interface producing a distinctive clicking sound since around the late 1990s the threebutton scrollmouse has become the de facto standard users most commonly employ the second button to invoke a contextual menu in the computers software user interface which contains options specifically tailored to the interface element over which the mouse cursor currently sits by default the primary mouse button sits located on the lefthand side of the mouse for the benefit of righthanded users lefthanded users can usually reverse this configuration via software scrolling scroll wheel nearly all mice now have an integrated input primarily intended for scrolling on top usually a singleaxis digital wheel or rocker switch which can also be depressed to act as a third button though less common many mice instead have twoaxis inputs such as a tiltable wheel trackball or touchpad mouse speed mickeys per second is a unit of measurement for the speed and movement direction of a computer mouse where direction is often expressed as horizontal versus vertical mickey count however speed can also refer to the ratio between how many pixels the cursor moves on the screen and how far the mouse moves on the mouse pad which may be expressed as pixels per mickey pixels per inch or pixels per centimeter the computer industry often measures mouse sensitivity in terms of counts per inch cpi commonly expressed as dots per inch dpi the number of steps the mouse will report when it moves one inch in early mice this specification was called pulses per inch ppi software can change the speed of the cursor dynamically taking into account the mouses absolute speed and the movement from the last stoppoint in most software an example being the windows platforms this setting is named speed referring to cursor precision however some operating systems name this setting acceleration the typical apple os designation this term is incorrect mouse acceleration in most mouse software refers to the change in speed of the cursor over time while the mouse movement is constant for simple software when the mouse starts to move the software will count the number of counts or mickeys received from the mouse and will move the cursor across the screen by that number of pixels or multiplied by a rate factor typically less than 1 the cursor will move slowly on the screen with good precision when the movement of the mouse passes the value set for some threshold the software will start to move the cursor faster with a greater rate factor usually the user can set the value of the second rate factor by changing the acceleration setting operating systems sometimes apply acceleration referred to as ballistics to the motion reported by the mouse for example versions of windows prior to windows xp doubled reported values above a configurable threshold and then optionally doubled them again above a second configurable threshold these doublings applied separately in the x and y directions resulting in very nonlinear response mousepads mousepad engelbarts original mouse did not require a mousepad the mouse had two large wheels which could roll on virtually any surface however most subsequent mechanical mice starting with the steel roller ball mouse have required a mousepad for optimal performance the mousepad the most common mouse accessory appears most commonly in conjunction with mechanical mice because to roll smoothly the ball requires more friction than common desk surfaces usually provide socalled hard mousepads for gamers or opticallaser mice also exist most optical and laser mice do not require a pad whether to use a hard or soft mousepad with an optical mouse is largely a matter of personal preference one exception occurs when the desk surface creates problems for the optical or laser tracking for example a transparent or reflective surface in the marketplace computer mice built between 1986 and 2007 around 1981 xerox included mice with its xerox star based on the mouse used in the 1970s on the alto computer at xerox parc sun microsystems symbolics lisp machines inc and tektronix also shipped workstations with mice starting in about 1981 later inspired by the star apple computer released the apple lisa which also used a mouse however none of these products achieved largescale success only with the release of the apple macintosh in 1984 did the mouse see widespread use the macintosh design the widespread adoption of graphical user interfaces in the software of the 1980s and 1990s made mice all but indispensable for controlling computers in november 2008 logitech built their billionth mouse use in games logitech g5 laser mouse designed for gaming the classic mac os desk accessory puzzle in 1984 was the first game designed specifically for a mouse the device often functions as an interface for pcbased computer games and sometimes for video game consoles firstperson shooters fpss naturally lend themselves to separate and simultaneous control of the players movement and aim and on computers this has traditionally been achieved with a combination of keyboard and mouse players use the xaxis of the mouse for looking or turning left and right and the yaxis for looking up and down the keyboard is used for movement and supplemental inputs many shooting genre players prefer a mouse over a gamepad analog stick because the mouse is a linear input device which allows for fast and precise control holding a stick in a given position produces a corresponding constant movement or rotation ie the output is an integral of the users input and requires that time be spent moving to or from its null position before this input can be given in contrast the output of a mouse directly and instantaneously corresponds to how far it is moved in a given direction often multiplied by an acceleration factor derived from how quickly the mouse is moved the effect of this is that a mouse is well suited to small precise movements large quick movements and immediate responsive movements all of which are important in shooter gaming this advantage also extends in varying degrees to similar game styles such as thirdperson shooters some incorrectly ported games or game engines have acceleration and interpolation curves which unintentionally produce excessive irregular or even negative acceleration when used with a mouse instead of their native platforms nonmouse default input device depending on how deeply hardcoded this misbehavior is internal user patches or external 3rdparty software may be able to fix it due to their similarity to the wimp desktop metaphor interface for which mice were originally designed and to their own tabletop game origins computer strategy games are most commonly played with mice in particular realtime strategy and moba games usually require the use of a mouse the left button usually controls primary fire if the game supports multiple fire modes the right button often provides secondary fire from the selected weapon games with only a single fire mode will generally map secondary fire to ironsights in some games the right button may also invoke accessories for a particular weapon such as allowing access to the scope of a sniper rifle or allowing the mounting of a bayonet or silencer gamers can use a scroll wheel for changing weapons or for controlling scopezoom magnification in older games on most first person shooter games programming may also assign more functions to additional buttons on mice with more than three controls a keyboard usually controls movement for example wasd for moving forward left backward and right respectively and other functions such as changing posture since the mouse serves for aiming a mouse that tracks movement accurately and with less lag latency will give a player an advantage over players with less accurate or slower mice in some cases the right mouse button may be used to move the player forward either in lieu of or in conjunction with the typical wasd configuration many games provide players with the option of mapping their own choice of a key or button to a certain control an early technique of players circle strafing saw a player continuously strafing while aiming and shooting at an opponent by walking in circle around the opponent with the opponent at the center of the circle players could achieve this by holding down a key for strafing while continuously aiming the mouse towards the opponent games using mice for input are so popular that many manufacturers make mice specifically for gaming such mice may feature adjustable weights highresolution optical or laser components additional buttons ergonomic shape and other features such as adjustable cpi mouse bungees are typically used with gaming mice because it eliminates the annoyance of the cable many games such as first or thirdperson shooters have a setting named invert mouse or similar not to be confused with button inversion sometimes performed by lefthanded users which allows the user to look downward by moving the mouse forward and upward by moving the mouse backward the opposite of noninverted movement this control system resembles that of aircraft control sticks where pulling back causes pitch up and pushing forward causes pitch down computer joysticks also typically emulate this controlconfiguration after id softwares commercial hit of doom which did not support vertical aiming competitor bungies marathon became the first firstperson shooter to support using the mouse to aim up and down know it home consoles in 1988 the vtech socrates educational video game console featured a wireless mouse with an attached mouse pad as an optional controller used for some games in the early 1990s the super nintendo entertainment system video game system featured a mouse in addition to its controllers the mario paint game in particular used the mouses capabilities as did its successor on the n64 sega released official mice for their genesismega drive saturn and dreamcast consoles nec sold official mice for its pc engine and pcfx consoles sony released an official mouse product for the playstation console included one along with the linux for playstation 2 kit as well as allowing owners to use virtually any usb mouse with the ps2 ps3 and ps4 nintendos wii also had this added on in a later software update retained on the wii u electronics portal computer accessibility footmouse graphics tablet gesture recognition humancomputer interaction hci list of wireless mice with nano receivers mouse keys mouse tracking pointing stick rotational mouse computer pang alex soojungkim mighty mouse in 1980 apple computer asked a group of guys fresh from stanfords product design program to take a 400 device and make it massproducible reliable and cheap their work transformed personal computing stanford university alumni magazine marchapril 2002 stanford university mousesite with stories and annotated archives from doug engelbarts work doug engelbart institute mouse resources page includes stories and links firecontrol and humancomputer interaction towards a history of the computer mouse 19401965 by axel roch 50 jahre computer mit der maus ffentliche veranstaltung am 5 dezember auf dem campus vaihingen invitation to a plenum discussion in german informatikforum stuttgart infos ev gi acmregionalgruppe stuttgart bblingen institut fr visualisierung und interaktive systeme der universitt stuttgart and sfbtrr 161 20161128 archived from the original on 20171115 retrieved 20171115 borchers detlef 20161210 50 jahre menschmaschineinteraktion finger oder kugel in german heise online archived from the original on 20171115 retrieved 20171115 yacoub mousa turfa majd maurer fabian 20160819 reverse engineering of the computer mouse rks 100 pdf archived pdf from the original on 20171115 retrieved 20171115 nb contains some historical photos wikiversity has learning resources about mouse computing wikimedia commons has media related to computer mice the video segment of the mother of all demos with doug engelbart showing the device from 1968 vtebasic computer componentsinput devices keyboard image scanner microphone pointing device graphics tablet joystick light pen mouse optical pointing stick touchpad touchscreen trackball refreshable braille display sound card webcam softcam video card output devices monitor refreshable braille display printer speakers plotter sound card video card removable data storage optical disc cd dvd bluray disk pack floppy disk memory card usb flash drive computer case central processing unit cpu hdd ssd sshd motherboard network interface controller power supply randomaccess memory ram fax modem expansion card ports ethernet firewire ieee 1394 parallel port serial port ps2 port usb thunderbolt displayport hdmi dvi vga esata audio jack vtevideo game controllerscontroller types arcade controller balance board digital camera dance pad fishing rod gamepad gaming keypad interactive urinal joystick keyboard light gun microphone motion controller mouse musical instruments nunchaku paddle racing wheel remote control throttle quadrant virtual reality headset wired glove controller partsphysical buttons analog stick arrow keys circle pad dpad discpad face button scroll wheel select button shoulder button start button telephone keypad trigger turbo button sensitive accelerometer haptic technology stylus pen touchpad touchscreen trackball related multitap rob authority control gnd 42251916 