What do industrial designers know about the devices you use every day. Or 50 years of transforming a computer mouse

All readers of Habr are somehow connected with design - in the role of developers or users. The results of the designers' work - successful and not very - surround us everywhere: furniture, clothes, graphics. But we will focus on our favorite topic - electronics, and specifically on serial devices, because the goal of any industrial designer is not a bold sketch and not an innovative prototype, but serial production of a new product. And here the fun begins, because starting the pipeline imposes its limitations already at the start of the project.

Under the cut - amazing half-century transformations of a computer mouse from the point of view of an industrial designer.

Usually, the American Douglas Engelbart, who received a patent for his invention 50 years ago - in 1970, is called the author of the first cursor control device.


_{SRI International, CC BY-SA 3.0}

Photo: D. Engelbart computer mouse - copy from the Museum of American History. A wooden prototype of this device was created by engineer Bill English (according to the sketches of the author-inventor).

But in fact, it was not so simple: the mouse was "invented" at least twice, it had prototypes in the form of trackballs and other ingenious devices.

Back in 1946, the British Ralph Benjamin, one of the engineers of the Royal Navy's radar system, designed the first pointing input device for a computer (then still analog). It was a trackball in a metal case: a metal ball rolled on two rubberized wheels controlling the X and Y axes. Development for a long time remained a military secret, the media began to write about it only in the two thousandth.

Also, an analogue of this device independently appeared in the Canadian military in 1952 - and was also secret at first.

Douglas Engelbart first spoke about his development at a lecture in 1961. The idea with wheels was inspired by planimeters - measuring devices for determining the area of ​​closed loops that appeared in the 1800s.



_{Patent US3541541A: Xy position indicator for a display system}

Drawings of a mouse and a motion sensor from D. Engelbart's patents. One of the two perpendicular wheels protrudes from the wooden case of the device in the photo above. The wheels rotate independently of each other. Instead of the word “mouse,” the patent uses the wording “XY position indicator for a display system”. In his interviews, Douglas Engelbart explained that the device was nicknamed the mouse due to the tail-pin and visual similarity.

In 1968, SRI commissioned Engelbart to order the first commercial prototype of his mouse — plastic, with three round buttons.

In the same year, the German company Telefunken Konstanz, regardless of the Americans, released its Rollkugel device. As the name implies - "rolling ball" - it worked on the principle of a trackball. It was designed for the SIG 100-86 vector graphics terminal and considered the development not important enough for filing a patent application.


_{(1) Mark Richards, Computer History Museum (2) Jürgen Müller, the first rolling-ball mouse (3) Patent US3835464A Pictured}

: Rollkugel RKS 100-86 mouse with a convenient flat button - the result of the development of the German company Telefunken Konstanz in 1965-1968 years This project is ahead of its time. The diagram on the right is the 1973 Xerox Corporation patent for the “Position Indicator for Display System”.

The designers of the Rollkugel device used an interesting technique - inversion. The fact is that until 1968, traditional trackballs were used in Telefunken terminals - balls on a stand, and an engineering team led by Rainer Mullebrain “turned” the device to get rid of the need to make mounting holes for the static base of the trackball.

A total of 46 copies were produced, which is not surprising, because computers at that time were very expensive (20 million brands), only large organizations and research centers could afford them.

The first truly serial mouse, which was included in the set with a computer, appeared only in 1981. It was a more convenient three-button model for controlling the Xerox 8010 Star Information System. However, it was still very expensive - $ 400, which is more than $ 1,100 in today's prices.


_{Based on the photo by Judson McCranie, CC BY-SA 3.0 Pictured}

: Xerox Alto computer mouse. The 1972 model was created at the Xerox Research Center in Palo Alto. Developer: Bill English (yes, the same Bill who created the wooden prototype of D. Engelbart's mouse).

The Xerox model was the starting point for a truly serial and affordable mouse, which was released by Apple. Walter Isaacson, author of the Steve Jobs biography, writes that a few days after his second visit to the Xerox Research Center, Jobs went to the local IDEO industrial design studio and said that he needed a simple model with one button, which costs $ 15, i.e. . 20 times less than the Xerox device (about $ 53 in our prices).

In 1983, the first Apple mouse came bundled with a Lisa computer. Jobs proposed replacing three buttons with one to simplify management. Also, at his request, the designers provided the mouse on any surface: both on the table and on the user's jeans.

At first the mouse was used on a Macintosh, but soon a device for Windows computers also appeared.


_{Based on the photo by moparx, CC BY-SA 2.0 Pictured}

: development of Apple's mouse line. The case from a rectangular stage-by-stage passes to the oval - so the designers provided ergonomic requirements, it became more convenient to hold the mouse in your hand.

The ball drive has been used for quite some time in a line of mice from various manufacturers. As a rule, the ball itself was steel, and its surface - rubber, rubber coating and the weight of the metal provided better adhesion to the working surface:


_{Based on the photo by Job, CC BY-SA 3.0}

In the photo: one of the most popular models of Logitech ball mouse driven.

Two rollers were pressed to the ball in the mouse, which read the movements and transmitted them to the angle sensors - the sensors themselves transmitted data in the form of an electrical signal.

In the late 80s and early 90s, industrial designers experimented with the shape and content of computer mice. So unusual evolutionary branches appeared, some of which became a dead end.


_{Based on the photos by Rama & Musée Bolo, CC BY-SA 2.0 FR}

In the photo: left and right - Logitech 3D Mouse, in the center - Silicon Graphics SpaceBall 1003.

In the late 90s and early 2000s, mice with optical sensors became widely used. The technology itself appeared back in 1980, but only by the two thousandth drop in the cost of components and an increase in the power of the controllers allowed to bring optical mice to the mass market and replace the ball drive.

At this stage, the main transformations began to take place already in the internal structure of the mouse: more advanced laser models appeared, control in three-dimensional space, devices with a gyroscope and even contactless interfaces that read the movements of the user's hand, i.e. the mouse itself disappears altogether.

But at the same time, designers continue to rethink the shape of our familiar mouse to make it more ergonomic. Of course, when choosing a new device, buyers pay attention to both the appearance and technical specifications. From the perspective of the industrial designer, these parameters complement each other, so he works not only with aesthetics, but also thinks out functionality, usability (ergonomics), maintainability, durability, production technology.

The natural desire of a real designer or constructor in the study of any electronic device is to disassemble it and follow the thoughts of their colleagues. How are the housing elements designed? Where are the stiffeners added and will the body stand the crash test? What materials were chosen? Where are the injection pointsin the mold for casting ?



_{Based on the photos at made-in-china.com}

In the photo: components of the mouse body and molds for injection molding of plastic.

Often, electronic users, unless they are fans of new technologies from Habr, pay attention to the appearance, not the design, and simply use the devices for work and entertainment, without thinking about how much work is hidden inside and how much effort is spent on their device was not only functional, but also convenient and affordable.

If you are interested in exploring this issue even deeper - let us know in the comments - then in one of the following articles we will talk about the industrial kitchen of the industrial designer and show how the whole process is arranged from the inside: from the first sketches tostarting the conveyor .