The year 1993 is remembered by many for the theatrical release of Jurassic Park. It was also the year the legendary Cheers series ended after 274 episodes. The Mars Observer takes the first photograph of the planet Mars, Puerto Rico votes against being the 51st state of the United States and the Maastricht Treaty enters into force, one of the bases that made the current European Union possible. In technology, the laptop IBM ThinkPad , launched the previous year, becomes popular. E Intel announces its chip Pentium with 32-bit architecture. And the subject that occupies us. In 1993, the space shuttle Discovery traveled into space with a trackball-type computer mouse on one of its computers, the Microsoft BallPoint .
Launched on the market in 1991, although there are those who place it in 1989, the Microsoft BallPoint was a portable trackpad designed precisely to integrate into portable computers , although it also It could be used in desktop computers, also compatible with its input for serial port or via PS / 2. Its entry price was $ 175 at the time and consisted of a ball integrated into a small casing that, in turn, was integrated into the laptop keyboard with an appliqué. Another fixture made it easier to tilt the device. And when you had enough space, you could separate the mouse from the computer itself and use it directly on the table, linked only by the cable.
With various updates over the years, and bolder evolutions such as the Microsoft Trackball Explorer from 2001, the computer mouse and especially the Microsoft trackball were relatively innovative bets that strayed away from the Image of Microsoft as the software giant. This was helped, in part, by the launch into space of the Microsoft BallPoint , which was a priceless advertising campaign thanks to NASA and the Discovery program.
Microsoft mice to use Windows
That the first hardware device Microsoft created was a mouse makes perfect sense. The Microsoft Hardware division arose in 1982. Let us remember that Microsoft was born as such in 1975 and its first task was to create a version of BASIC for Altair computers. Then will come his other big hit, MS-DOS (1981), Office (1989) and Windows 3.0 (1990). But let's go step by step.
The first hardware that Microsoft creates, in 1983, is a mouse for use with Microsoft Word in DOS. That same year, Apple introduced the graphical interface to its Apple Lisa . From then on, the computer mouse will be a mainstay of the peripherals division . The mouse and the trackball, that ball that will be part of almost all laptops. Interestingly, the trackball was born in 1952, long before the first mouse (1961). But it was the second that won in the field of desktop computers, leaving the trackball the field of portable computing, which needed a device that would make better use of the little space available.
Apple, with the launch of the Macintosh in 1984, and Microsoft with its Windows in 1985, led the way to use alternative peripherals to the keyboard to interact with the computer. In an age when computers still did not know windows or icons. The star peripheral from now on would be the mouse, powered especially by Windows. Then the trackball would come in 1989 with Apple's Macintosh Portable and the trackpad in 1994 with the PowerBook 500 , also from Apple, the first laptop that introduced that curious rectangle in which you had to slide your finger to see how the cursor moved on the screen. Today the trackpad is the king of portable computing, although it still has trackball advocates and some still connect a computer mouse to their laptop.
Microsoft BallPoint: a removable trackball
We said that Microsoft launched its first computer mouse in 1983. Its design is quite elegant for the time, although with today's look it looks more like a box with two switches. From now on, it will continue to produce more mice that will sell very well thanks to the success of Windows, Microsoft's flagship product at this time.
In 1991, it put on sale the Microsoft BallPoint , a trackball that you can carry around and connect to your desktop or laptop computer. As I explained at the beginning, you could freely use it on the table connected to the computer with a serial port cable or integrate it with the laptop via an adapter. Only two years earlier, Apple had introduced the built-in trackball in its Macintosh Portable . And although IBM opted for its legendary TrackPoint , most laptop manufacturers opted for the trackball.
However, not all laptops had a trackball. But as the press of the time pointed out that in 1994 half of the computers sold would be portable, Microsoft decided to put on sale its own pointing device for that range of computers. A trackball to move the cursor around the screen in Windows, the operating system from the same manufacturer. And in addition to the free movement with the main ball, it had four buttons that you could customize depending on the angle of the peripheral. The adapter allowed to tilt it more or less to suit the user.
For the rest, the first Microsoft BallPoint had a starting price of 175 US dollars at the time, it required computers with 20 KB of RAM and a serial port or PS / 2 port.
Second parts are sometimes very good
The November 1993 issue of InfoWorld magazine dedicates a column to the Microsoft BallPoint Mouse 2.0 , the second version of this portable trackball. The article talks about an improved design and a more fluid movement. In addition, it integrates better with the laptop keyboard. The buttons also receive an improvement, being easier to identify by touch. And add a new button to the side of the ball to ease the frequent task of clicking. Its starting price, 125 dollars of the time. As a curiosity, the manufacture of this second version is carried out by Toshiba . Hence, we can find some laptops from this manufacturer with the Microsoft BallPoint replacing the Microsoft brand with their own.
This second version was more successful than the first . Windows has already established itself as the operating system for the general public. Windows 3.1, the version that consolidates this system, was launched in April 1992. And for 1993 the mythical 3.11 is already available with the motto “for group work” thanks to its networking functions.
Today there are still proponents of this type of laptop peripheral. And for second-hand lovers, on the web you will find several versions for sale of the Microsoft BallPoint . In Spain itself, the first version is sold for about 25 euros today and is in good condition. Too bad the cable is for a serial port, now gone.
What became of Microsoft's BallPoint series of mice? After two major releases, the Microsoft Hardware line of mice and trackballs has continued for all these years. At the beginning of the article I mentioned its most recent heir, the TrackBall Explorer , whose cable was already USB by default and brought an adapter for PS / 2 ports. Another similar model was the TrackBall Optical . There was also a children's trackball between 1995 and 1998 by the name of Microsoft EasyBall .
Microsoft BallPoint: the astronaut mouse
“Microsoft now has an astronaut mouse,” begins an article of the time in April 1993. NASA included a BallPoint in one of the missions of its star shuttle at the time, Discovery. Specifically, in the mission that started the second part of the project ATLAS , acronym for Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science, that is, Atmospheric Laboratory of Applications and Sciences. Code-named, the flight was STS-56. A year earlier, in March 1992, the first ATLAS had been produced. The objective was to study the composition of the atmosphere and its variations in the face of solar changes.
As a curiosity, in NASA publications from 1991 the debate on whether to use a computer mouse or trackball in their missions is already discussed. In one experiment, a Macintosh was used and the use of a mouse and trackball was tested. In the conclusions, the computer mouse comes out well at the beginning of the document because allows faster selection of text . But it has its drawbacks, which we all know today. The trackball, on the other hand, works better with tasks in microgravity environments .
Microsoft's trackball was integrated into the Payload General Support Computer (PGSC), a laptop that could be used independently and that was used to communicate with the rest of the ship's electronic systems. And as shown by images and photographs from NASA itself, this laptop was nothing more and nothing less than a IBM ThinkPad , one of the most popular of that 1993 and which continued to be used in subsequent missions. Furthermore, different versions of these portables continue to be used in missions associated with the International Space Station. Of course, the Microsoft trackball is no longer used, a product that has already been discontinued but has the merit of having traveled to space.
