suppe@ge-dab.GE.COM (Dennis Suppe) (11/08/88)
I am in the market for a 3 button serial mouse. The two I am considering are : Logitech Mouse (mechanical) Mouse Systems Optical Mouse I have worked with both of these on Apollo and Sun workstations, and prefer the Mouse Systems Optical Mouse. Does anyone know if these are compatible with the Microsoft Mouse? Can the Mouse Systems Mouse act like a Logitech Mouse and vice versa? Does anyone know where I can get a Mouse Systems 3 button Optical mouse? ( I have only been able to find the 2 button type ) Thanks in advance, Dennis Suppe. -- Dennis R. Suppe <suppe@ge-dab.GE.COM> General Electric Simulation and Control System Department 1800 Volusia Ave, Room 4336 Daytona Beach, Florida 32015 UUCP: ...!mcnc!ge-dab.GE.COM!suppe Phone: (904) 239-2563
cacsc222%mx@csun.edu (11/09/88)
In article <1416@ge-dab.GE.COM> suppe@ge-dab.GE.COM (Dennis Suppe) writes: | I am in the market for a 3 button serial mouse. | | [deleted] | | I have worked with both of these on Apollo and Sun workstations, and | prefer the Mouse Systems Optical Mouse. I use one of these at work and I love it. | Does anyone know if these are compatible with the Microsoft Mouse? Mouse Systems is | Can the Mouse Systems Mouse act like a Logitech Mouse and vice versa? Don't know. | Does anyone know where I can get a Mouse Systems 3 button Optical mouse? | ( I have only been able to find the 2 button type ) I didn't even know that they made two button mouses. Try Priority 1. They occaisionaly advertise in Byte. They have both the bus and serial versions. To anyone out there considering a mouse, I highly recommend the MSC (formerly Mouse Systems) mouse. A joy to use, and they specify all the I/O in the documentation (I love the units of measurement for mouse movement -- mickeys). In addition, they provide a "menu language" and "compiler" to provide mouse support for applications that do not directly support a mouse. They provide sample drivers for many standard business packages. I use their mouse with Word 4.0 (using their Microsoft Mouse driver), and have had absolutely zero problems. When I buy a mouse for my home computer, I am 99.44% sure that it will be an MSC optical mouse. I have no relationship with MSC except as a (very) satisfied customer. "Disclaimer? We don't need no stinking disclaimers!!!!!" Scott Neugroschl ...!sm.uinisys.com!csun!mx!cacsc222
brown@nicmad.UUCP (Mr. Video) (11/09/88)
In article <1416@ge-dab.GE.COM> suppe@ge-dab.GE.COM (Dennis Suppe) writes:
<I am in the market for a 3 button serial mouse.
<
<The two I am considering are :
<
< Logitech Mouse (mechanical)
< Mouse Systems Optical Mouse
<
<I have worked with both of these on Apollo and Sun workstations, and
<prefer the Mouse Systems Optical Mouse.
<
< Does anyone know if these are compatible with the Microsoft Mouse?
The Logitech Mouse is a CMOS mouse (no power supply required) and can be
programmed at least five different ways, one of which is the Microsoft
Mouse.
< Can the Mouse Systems Mouse act like a Logitech Mouse and vice versa?
The default mode of the Logitech Mouse is what is known as 5 byte
packed binary. This mode is the Mouse Systems Mouse mode. I do not
know if Mouse Systems makes a mouse that is programmable like the Logitech.
< Does anyone know where I can get a Mouse Systems 3 button Optical mouse?
< ( I have only been able to find the 2 button type )
Gee, I didn't know you could get a two-button one. The ones that we have
at work are three-button.
--
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thaler@speedy.cs.wisc.edu (Maurice Thaler) (11/10/88)
Well, I used the MSC optical mouse for a couple years, but I recently switched to the Microsoft Mouse and like it MUCH more. The feel is better, it seems more accurate to me, it is faster (this does take a little getting used to) and it is more compatable. I thought the MSC mouse was compatable until I tried it with certain applications like Autocad, AutoSketch, AutoMenu (hmm, these all start with AUTO I wonder if there is a connection) at any rate, with all these for some reason the UP/DOWN motion from the mouse got REVERSED! Very unnerving. At any rate, since I do a lot of desktop publishing, I feel that a mouse is very important to my work and I just like the feel of the Msoft mouse better. You can count on it being compatable with a Msoft mouse because it is one. One short aside. I recently bought a new Msoft mouse for the office here, bundled with Win286, and the mouse driver was not as good as the old one on my DELL SYSTEM300. For some reason, sometimes it would not load. I would call it a second time, it would say "mouse not found" on a third try, it would find it. I switched back to the '87 version of the driver and have had no problems. I think the new version was written to overcome some problems with Msoft WORD which I don't use. All in all, optical is nice but it doesn't have the nice feel as the MSoft one does.
pad3563@ultb.UUCP (P.A. Deupree ) (11/10/88)
In article <1678@csun.edu> cacsc222@mx.csun.edu (Scott "The Pseudo-Hacker" Neugroschl) writes: >In article <1416@ge-dab.GE.COM> suppe@ge-dab.GE.COM (Dennis Suppe) writes: >| I have worked with both of these on Apollo and Sun workstations, and >| prefer the Mouse Systems Optical Mouse. > >I use one of these at work and I love it. > Hmm. I guess I just started off on the wrong foot with optical mice. I worked at a computer store 6 years ago (we're talking back in the days when the IBM PC had first come out) and I worked with the first mouse for the PC. It was an optical mouse (though I forget the company) that had a few problems. I didn't like it for quite a few reasons. It was a pain in the butt to have to keep it on the stupid mirror pad. It's movement was often choppy (as will happen with optical mice at times). And it didn't always work (this has probably been solved in the Microsoft mouse. Since then I've worked with the Sun 3 workstations (that have optical mice) and found basically the same problems. I didn't like them either and have been totally disenchanted with optical mice. So I bought a logitech bus mouse off a guy here and have had no problems. I like it because it moves smoothly, I don't need that dumb optical pad, and it's worked with everything I have so far. Now I just have to figure out how to field an interrupt from the dumb thing. > >To anyone out there considering a mouse, I highly recommend the MSC (formerly >Mouse Systems) mouse. A joy to use, and they specify all the I/O in the >documentation (I love the units of measurement for mouse movement -- mickeys). >In addition, they provide a "menu language" and "compiler" to provide mouse >support for applications that do not directly support a mouse. They provide >sample drivers for many standard business packages. > I think that most mice do have this kind of thing. My Logitech came with a program to create your own menues for various software. It came with sample menu programs (although I have to adjust things because the mouse moves way too fast in them) and it even came with a Logitech paint program (that isn't that good, but heck, it came with the thing). Gee, maybe I'll interface it with the Wordperfect 5.0 I'm using and have something fairly neat. @:) -- Patrick A. Deupree Bitnet: PAD3563@RITVAX.BITNET UUCP: pxd3563@ultb.UUCP "I have great faith in fools. Self confidence my friends call it." Edgar Allen Poe
mike@raven.BV.TEK.COM (Mike Ewan) (11/12/88)
I have a Logitech mouse and am very pleased with it. Also Tektronix OEM's the Logitech mouse for all of our Workstation products. In article <1416@ge-dab.GE.COM> suppe@ge-dab.GE.COM (Dennis Suppe) writes: > > Does anyone know if these are compatible with the Microsoft Mouse? The Logitech mouse can emulate either the MicroSoft mouse or the Mouse Systems mouse depending on whether or not you install the driver software. With the driver it looks like the MicroSoft mouse. > Can the Mouse Systems Mouse act like a Logitech Mouse and vice versa? I don't think the Mouse System mouse is able to look like the Logitech. > Does anyone know where I can get a Mouse Systems 3 button Optical mouse? > ( I have only been able to find the 2 button type ) I've never seen one. -- Michael Ewan ucbvax...\ Tektronix Inc. decvax....\ (503) 627-6468 uw-beaver.... >!tektronix!nesa!raven!mike mike@raven.TELCOM.TEK.COM uunet..../
davidsen@steinmetz.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr) (11/14/88)
The optical vs. mechanical mouse question is interesting. The users of optical mice say that mechanical mice tend to need cleaning a lot (all of the ones on our Macs seem to). The mechanical people say that they don't want to have to use the optical pad. Recantly the mechanical people have started using mouse pads. Now they claim that there is no problem with cleaning needed. Not one of them complains that they have to run on a pad. My personal opinion is that any device with moving parts will have a higher failure rate than a device of the same complexity with no moving parts. I use both types of mouse and don't like mice in general. -- bill davidsen (wedu@ge-crd.arpa) {uunet | philabs}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me
bob@stl.olivetti.com (Bob Weissman) (11/15/88)
In article <12586@steinmetz.ge.com>, davidsen@steinmetz.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr) writes: > The optical vs. mechanical mouse question is interesting. The users of > optical mice say that mechanical mice tend to need cleaning a lot (all > of the ones on our Macs seem to). The mechanical people say that they > don't want to have to use the optical pad. The Macintosh mouse picks up a lot of dirt because it uses a rubber ball rather than a metal one. The Mac mouse's ball reminds me of a rubber pencil eraser, and seems to act like one, too. The Microsoft mouse on my XT at home has a metal ball, just like God and Xerox intended, and I have never had to clean it. I use a standard 8.5x11" pad of paper as a mouse pad; it doubles as a note pad (when the top sheet gets full, I just tear it off and discard it). > Recantly the mechanical people have started using mouse pads. Now they > claim that there is no problem with cleaning needed. Not one of them > complains that they have to run on a pad. The problem with optical mice is not the existence of the mouse pad; it is the fact that the mouse must be correctly aligned with the pad in order to provide the correct tracking. That is, you cannot skew the mouse pad and hope your mouse will track correctly. You have to keep the pad aligned with the screen aligned with the mouse. This adds extra cognitive processing to a process which is supposed to be transparent.The Sun 3/60 in my office uses the awful Mouse Systems optical mouse. This thing has two felt pads on the bottom which pick up as much dust and lint as any mechanical mouse with a rubber ball. > My personal opinion is that any device with moving parts will have a > higher failure rate than a device of the same complexity with no moving > parts. I use both types of mouse and don't like mice in general. I use both types of mouse and like mice in general. And good old mechanical mice with metal balls in particular. -- Bob Weissman bob@stl.olivetti.com Routed UUCP: bob@oli-stl.uucp UUCP: ...!{ ames | decwrl | oliveb | pyramid }!oli-stl!bob Arpanet: bob%oli-stl.uucp@ames.arc.nasa.gov
rmb384@leah.Albany.Edu (Robert M. Bownes III) (11/16/88)
The great debate over optical vs mechanical mice doesn't seem to have touched on the subject of noise.... The sound of that metal ball rolling on a desktop drives me up the wall....Grrrrind, clunk, rrrrroooooollllll...AAAAHGGGG!!!!! As for alignment of the optipad, I've never had trouble geting it right and feel no real need to think about the alignment after a short adjustment period.... As for the writing pad idea...I like it. I'll try it at home where the mouse is where it belongs....under my left hand.... bob -- Bob Bownes, Aka Keptin Comrade Dr Bobwrench III | If I didn't say it, It bownesrm@beowulf.uucp (518)-482-8798 | must be true. {steinmetz,brspyr1,sun!sunbow}!beowulf!bownesrm | - me, tonite - "If I'd known it was harmless, I'd have killed it myself" Phillip K. Dick.