[Info-vax] VSXXX-AA mouse revisited

[Galen]

>    There were two variations of the hockey puck:  one with a traditional
>    ball on the bottom, and one with two cylinders.  The two cylinder
>    mouse is the most reliable mouse I've ever used, I've got one on
>    my Alpha at home.
>

The "two cylinder" variation was one of my mouse designs ever. (I
always thought of them as having wheels, but I guess one man's wheel
== another man's cylinder unless you're talking about car parts :-)

I've used a number in the dozens each of both ball and two-cylinder
mice over the 25+ years that I've been using VMS. (Of course, VMS
systems typically had NO mice--except, perhaps, the animal kind--
during the first few of those years.)

The cylinder type was the first mouse in my experience that worked
reliably--ymmhv--on most desk surfaces without requiring a mouse pad.
They never got clogged with dirt and were much simpler to clean (which
they seldom needed anyway).

For me, the shape and size shared by these two variants was also very
comfortable, for those days before the fancy shapes evolved that we
have now.

Now that most (all?) new designs are optical, the advantages of the
cylinder variety are moot. Too bad, though, that they didn't catch on
more widely.