How does your mouse work?
May 8th 2007 06:26
Signature Tune
Your mouse is used every time you want to move your cursor or click something. The click activates your computer program.
A ball inside the mouse touches the desktop and rolls when the mouse moves.
Two rollers inside the mouse touch the ball. They detect up and sideways movements, as in the x and y axes of a graph. If you are not familiar with these terms just think up and down and sideways.
The rollers each connect to a shaft, and the shaft spins a disk with holes in it.
On either side of the disk there is an infrared LED and an infrared sensor. The holes in the disk break the beam of light coming from the LED so that the infrared sensor sees pulses of light. The rate of the pulsing is directly related to the speed of the mouse and the distance it travels. [LED means Light emitting diode, diode is a specialized electronic component with two electrodes called the anode and the cathode - don't worry about this too much, you just want to get an idea]
Just think of a beam of light giving out pulses.
A computer chip senses these pulses which are turned into binary data. I explained binary data on a previous post some time ago. This 'two letter alphabet' is computer talk turned into a program which tells the computer what to do.
That is a fairly simple explanation and for more go to the link
If you want to know more, leave a comment saying what you'd like to know.
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Comment by Nickoftime's Sanity Corner
wow cool! I have an "elctronic" laser mouse that doesn't have any moving parts...
Now if you can explain how THAT works then I'll know! LOL
Like the colors alot here...
Take care,
Nick
Comment by katyzzz
Photography Tips
MS Paint Art
You're obviously top end of the market.
I'll see what I can do.
Love your comments, as always.
katyzzz