{"id":643,"date":"2010-04-19T19:58:54","date_gmt":"2010-04-20T00:58:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/?p=643"},"modified":"2010-04-20T07:56:34","modified_gmt":"2010-04-20T12:56:34","slug":"retro-scan-of-the-week-ibm-scrollpoint-mouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/643\/retro-scan-of-the-week-ibm-scrollpoint-mouse","title":{"rendered":"<span id=\"retro_color\">[ Retro Scan of the Week ]<\/span> IBM ScrollPoint Mouse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"\/wp-content\/images\/retroscan\/ibm_scrollpoint_mouse_large.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/wp-content\/images\/retroscan\/ibm_scrollpoint_mouse_small.jpg\" alt=\"IBM ScrollPoint Mouse Ad - 1997\" class=\"centered\"\/><\/a><span class=\"freecaption\"><em>Overcome one of the Internet&#8217;s least annoying problems.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Ever since Microsoft introduced its first mouse with a scroll wheel, the IntelliPoint Explorer, in 1996, mouse designers have been tripping over themselves to solve the non-problem of how to allow a user to scroll a document horizontally as well as vertically.  Along the way, we&#8217;ve seen solutions like the IBM TrackPoint (above), Microsoft&#8217;s own &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.pcworld.com\/article\/111905\/microsoft_tilts_the_mouse_wheel.html\" target=\"_blank\">tilt wheel<\/a>&#8221; mice, and more recently the &#8220;scroll ball&#8221; on <a href=\"http:\/\/store.apple.com\/us\/product\/MB112LL\/B\" target=\"_blank\">Apple&#8217;s Mighty Mouse<\/a>.  In the case of the ScrollPoint mouse seen above, it looks like IBM simply took its <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pointing_stick\" target=\"_blank\">TrackPoint<\/a> pointing device and stuck it on a mouse where a scroll wheel should be.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s all been for naught, though, because 99% of mouse users don&#8217;t care about scrolling horizontally.  In fact, if you have to scroll horizontally to view a website &#8212; the task most often enhanced by a scroll wheel &#8212; the website has been terribly designed.  As a result, I suspect that horizontal scrolling apparatus tend to annoy users more than help them.  I&#8217;m sure someone out there will read this and swear by their horizontal scrolling mouse, but I&#8217;m also fairly certain that person is in the minority.<\/p>\n<p>For more on mouse history, check out <a href=\"http:\/\/www.macworld.com\/article\/137400\/2008\/12\/mouse40.html\" target=\"_blank\">this nifty article<\/a> I did for Macworld  a few years ago.  It includes a handy mouse technology timeline.<\/p>\n<p><center><em><small>[ From PC World, November 1997, p.27 ]<\/small><\/em><\/center><\/p>\n<p><strong>Discussion Topic of the Week:<\/strong> Does your mouse provide the means to scroll horizontally as well as vertically?  How do you feel about it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Overcome one of the Internet&#8217;s least annoying problems. Ever since Microsoft introduced its first mouse with a scroll wheel, the IntelliPoint Explorer, in 1996, mouse designers have been tripping over themselves to solve the non-problem of how to allow a user to scroll a document horizontally as well as vertically. Along the way, we&#8217;ve seen [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,16,27,26,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computer-info-and-history","category-computer-design","category-regular_features","category-retro-scan-of-the-week","category-computers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}