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In the Forums... |
Posted: November 5, 1999 Written by: David "Spunk" Grampa Estimated retail price: $69.95  Introduction The introduction of the first computer mouse in the late 60's to accompany Douglas Engelbart's development of GUI or Graphics User Interface (the interface of almost all personal computers) was genuinely ingenuitive and served as a useful tool. The mouse has been a device that can not be expanded or improved, in terms of how it works- or at least hasn't been until now. The development of Microsoft's optical motion-sensing technology known as IntelliEye is the reason. This technology is impressive, but are 'the people' ready to evolve to something that works and is cool, but overhead may not be worthwhile? In this review I will explain the optical mouse technology, but more importantly its usefulness to you.  System Requirements PC System Requirements
How it works... Many of us have grown accustomed to the 'rubber ball' mechanics of the mouse. This method operated on an X,Y coordinate system and has many problems. A few of which include mouse cleaning, requirement of certain surfaces, and lack of precision required in graphics editing and quite simply- playing games. Although the mouse undoubtedly has evolved from its preexistent species, the basic internal anatomy has remained the same... While just looking to change something (as Microsoft tends to do), they came up with the idea of an optical sensory mouse dubbed the IntelliEye. This has the promise to change our mice as we know them today.  So exactly how does the IntelliEye work? Basically, it scans surfaces 1500 times a second and converts the noticeable change into cursor movement. The human eye and brain detect movement much in the same way. To go a little more in-depth, a tiny CMOS digital camera takes 1500 pictures of the surface below the mouse. The images are sorted, and an onboard 18 MIPS processor studies the images and translates the difference in direction and image change into crisp, and surprisingly accurate cursor movement... while not chewing up any CPU power (when used as a USB mouse). The technology works exceptionally well, much better than the traditional rubber ball mouse. So where is the mouse's downfall? If there is one, I'll explain on the next page =).  
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