Second quote of the day

This one from the Mercury News:

As many as 10 companies tried to commercialize the mouse in the 1970s and early 1980s, before the introduction of Apple's mouse-equipped Lisa in 1983. These commercial mice cost as much as $400, malfunctioned regularly and boasted an intimidating two or three buttons, said Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, research director at the Institute for the Future, a Palo Alto think tank.

"Put a two-button mouse in front of someone who had never worked with a computer, it was terribly, terribly confusing,'' said Pang, who has written a history of the mouse....

The [first] Apple mouse set a standard copied in hundreds of millions of later models, including two- and three-button models used in PC-compatible computers of the late 1980s, Pang said.

The $49 Mighty Mouse is the product of the same design sensibilities, Pang said. It's just that the definition of what's easy to use has changed.

"Fast-forward to 2005. We have a generation of kids who've grown up with GameBoys, PlayStation controllers, with text messaging on cell phones,'' Pang said. "And so for them, a mouse with two buttons on the top, two buttons on the side and a scroll ball is easy to use.''

[To the tune of Double, "U ("Astro Base" Remix)," from the album "Gee(Gts) Presents Greatest Remix".]

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