Mouse Systems
The company Mouse Systems Corporation (formerly Rodent Associates) was founded in 1982 by Steve Kirsch, inventor of the optical mouse. The company's headquarters was in Fremont, California. Except for the fact that the company marketed Kirsch invention, she was also involved in the introduction of the mouse for the IBM PC.
Like all early optical mice, the first product was dependent on a special metallic, reflective mouse pad, which was printed with a grid of gray and blue track lines. As the mouse is moved over the mouse pad, the reflected light from the LED of a built-in microchip was evaluated, which provided the PC machine-readable transaction data via the serial interface (RS232). An external power supply was still necessary at this time. Some mice have obtained their supply voltage also from the keyboard connector on the motherboard of the PC that was tapped via an intermediate connector between the keyboard cable and keyboard connector.
Early SUN workstations were exclusively equipped with optical Mouse Systems mice and workstations the company SGI were partially delivered it. The first of these were delivered with a large mouse pads with clearly separate lines, the later models were smaller and were printed with a much closer and finer, predominantly gray grid pattern. To improve the lubricity and do not scratch the Mauspadmetall, the mice were glued on the bottom with strips of felt. Although the optical mouse actually did not need cleaning, they have nevertheless behave paradoxically, after a few years use strange for no apparent reason.
1984 was released by the company Mouse Systems PC Paint program, the first mouse-driven image editing program for the IBM PC. It was developed by John bridges. Until the early 1990s, millions of packages of this program were mainly distributed along with the mice. As its own product without the mouse him only a limited economic success had granted.
The company Mouse Systems Corporation was acquired in 1990 by the Taiwanese company Kye Systems. Since June 1999, all activities of Mouse Systems are performed at Kye Systems, the website www.mousesystems.com is no longer accessible.
One of the strange stories of Mouse Systems was the matter with her red mousepads with the slogan " Mouse Systems: The most accurate data input system since 19821 " ( German: " Mouse Systems: The most accurate data input devices since 19821 " ) were printed. Of these, Mouse pads with the faulty printed year " 19821 " several thousand were delivered.