Similar mouses to this one

[PlacaFromHell]

Hi guys. I'm looking for a similar mouse to this one

I know which model is but I'm also looking for similar ones because of the rarity it has here in Argentina (I can't pay for a shipping right now and I want to start with other projects too).
My idea is remove the internals and put one of these gaming mouses inside to replicate Jack McCauley's prototype. I really hate leds and how strange and needlessly flashy are the actual mouses (also IBM/IBM-like stuff is so cool).

[c.p]

Hello,
I have the same mouse in good working condition. What can you offer. I am from UK.

Many thanks
Claudiu

[Menuhin]

Rather than messing with such a rare, collector grade vintage IBM mouse, why don't you build your prototype from 3D print and quick hardening (after treated with boiling water) prototyping clay?

[PlacaFromHell]

Hello,
I have the same mouse in good working condition. What can you offer. I am from UK.

Many thanks
Claudiu

Sorry but I have no money now. I expended too much in other hardware and the economy of my country is dying faster than I predicted. Maybe after the working season of the next month. Thanks for the offer anyway. If you still have it by February I'll talk to you.

Rather than messing with such a rare, collector grade vintage IBM mouse, why don't you build your prototype from 3D print and quick hardening (after treated with boiling water) prototyping clay?

Sorry but I'm a man of injection moulding. At least to me, 3D printed hardware isn't that good.

[__red__]

Sorry but I'm a man of injection moulding. At least to me, 3D printed hardware isn't that good.

Then you've been looking at the wrong 3D printers.

They 3D print structural airplane parts now.

It's all about the technology that's used.

[PlacaFromHell]

I know, you made great beamspring switch boxes, but wouldn't be even more expensive than just buy the mouse? Also, I would gladly make a 3D model for printing it, but I can't without one to take the measurements.

A experiment made a while ago:

[__red__]

I know, you made great beamspring switch boxes, but wouldn't be even more expensive than just buy the mouse? Also, I would gladly make a 3D model for printing it, but I can't without one to take the measurements.

Sure, it may not make sense for your case at all given the expense of commercial 3D printers or trying to build one yourself of the class that you'd need to meet your requirements.

The only reason I replied was that you seemed to write-off 3D printing from the point of view of quality.

You're absolutely right though, for a one-off - if you can find the original parts it makes absolute sense to do that.

[Findecanor]

I wonder if the mouse in that picture is a real prototype made by Jack McCauley in 1987 or a fake.

The picture is from Wikipedia. According to its metadata, the picture was taken in 2017. The Wikipedia user that uploaded it and which edited the Scroll Wheel article, as well as a lot on the article on Jack McCauley was outed as a sock puppet not long after -- but the image and article text remains.

According to the Wikipedia article, the invention would have been done in 1987, two years before Daniel Venolia (now Gina Danielle Venolia) at Apple published a paper on her invention of a horizontal wheel at ACM SIGCHI in 1989.
However, according to a Jack McCauley's profile on Crunchbase, in what looks like a cached copy of McCauley's profile on LinkedIn, his invention would have been done in 1992.

I have yet to find any third-party reference of McCauley's invention, only things that can be tracked back to McCauley himself. The Wikipedia article references a description of him as a speaker, likely told by himself.
(He sometimes uses the phrase "the first scrolling feature on a computer mouse", which is a bit bold if you ask me, as there are lots of other ways to scroll using a mouse other than using a wheel.)
He says in an interview by IGN that he built it and put it away.

Bah. This is confusing and I'm tired.

[Findecanor]

I emailed Bill Buxton (cited source on WIkipedia's article on Scroll Wheel, colleague of Venolia and BTW an owner of a nice collection of input devices).
He also thought that McCauley, Venolia (Apple) and Eric Michelman (Microsoft IntelliMouse) could have developed their respective scroll-wheel mice without knowledge of the others'. That notion might not be as far-fetched as it seems though: as examples of other scrolling features on mice and using a wheel for scrolling precede mounting of a scroll wheel on a mouse. (Simultaneous inventions by different people have happened many times before in history.)
However, he knew of no documentation of McCauley's mouse... so there is probably no verifiable proof that he was first, if he was. I updated Wikipedia's article on "Scroll wheel" to make these thing clearer.

Anyway.. Sorry for this tangent.

[Red_October]

I emailed Bill Buxton (cited source on WIkipedia's article on Scroll Wheel, colleague of Venolia and BTW an owner of a nice collection of input devices).
He also thought that McCauley, Venolia (Apple) and Eric Michelman (Microsoft IntelliMouse) could have developed their respective scroll-wheel mice without knowledge of the others'. That notion might not be as far-fetched as it seems though: as examples of other scrolling features on mice and using a wheel for scrolling precede mounting of a scroll wheel on a mouse. (Simultaneous inventions by different people have happened many times before in history.)
However, he knew of no documentation of McCauley's mouse... so there is probably no verifiable proof that he was first, if he was. I updated Wikipedia's article on "Scroll wheel" to make these thing clearer.

Anyway.. Sorry for this tangent.

Yes it is more common than people think for inventions to happen concurrently without much/any contact between the parties on the concept in question. The French and the British developed the tank concurrently, and naturally in great secrecy. Edison and Swan developed filament bulbs at once, the TU-144, despite outward appearances, is not the fruits of industrial espionage on the part of the Soviets, which is not to say they didn't try, because they did, but the French threw them off track with bogus information. The superficial resemblance is due to the fact that only certain shapes are amenable to travel at twice the speed of sound. It has been said that "Anything useful will be invented", ideas often develop concurrently due to some other aspect of science advancing to the point where it can be supported, causing multiple people or groups to commence work on the same concept around the same time.