Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

No-click Mouse?

Posted by michael on from the like-peanut-butter-without-chocolate dept.

TheRealZappa writes "For quite a while now I have been looking for a mouse that would not make any "clicking" sound when the buttons are pressed... Does it even exist? So to all you quiet-pc amateurs and hardware hackers... Can it be hacked? Can it be bought somewhere?" Sure it exists, I think they call it a "trackball" or "touchpad". Seriously, I've never had a non-broken mouse that didn't click.

3 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. just break the clicker by vipw · · Score: 3, Informative

    just break the catch that clicks under the mouse buttons, i've done that a few times on accident, pulling up the buttons(nervous habit). you lose some tactile response, but i don't see how to get around that, smooth motion is usually what is quiet.

  2. Cirque by Liquor · · Score: 4, Informative

    You may still be able to get a Cirque 'glide-pad' touchpad for a mouse - while it has buttons, you can use a tap on the pad as a click, and re-assign the buttons to different actions (such as cut and paste). Under Windows, the drivers provide the 'click' throught the PC squeaker - but this can be turned off.

    I haven't seen any for sale for a few years now, though. (On the other hand, I have several, and NONE of them have failed in years of every day use - though the touch surfaces are all well polished and slightly concave now. They're the most reliable mouse I've ever encountered.)

    --

    Liquor
    Sanity is a highly overrated commodity.
  3. a plethora of silent mouse buttons by dutky · · Score: 3, Informative
    one poster has pointed out the older Sun mice whose buttons make no sound. These are sun part number 370-1169-01 (for the type-3 version with a modified RJ-11 connector) or 370-1170-01 (for the type-4 with an 8-pin min-DIN connector), and were manufactured by MouseSystems. (Mouse Systems Corp. referred to these as part numbers 401162-529/A and 401162-035/D) Nice little three button optical (old style, requiring a reflective gridded mousing surface) mice. Unless you are using a Sun workstation with a type-3 or type-4 keyboard, you will have damn little hope of using these mice.

    I seem to recall that Mouse Systems made simlar mice for other systems as well, including Macs and PCs, so you may have some luck finding an old Mouse Systems mouse with clickless buttons that will work with a relativly modern computer.

    There are also a couple of PS/2 style mice from IBM that have silent buttons: both the standard wedge shaped PS/2 mouse (Model 6450350) and the Psersonal System/2® Mini-Mouse (Part No. 95F5443) have silent buttons, and can easily be used on any modern PC with a PS/2 mouse port. Both of these mice are simple opto-mechanical two button jobs, so anyone needing a multi-button or scroll-wheel fix is SOL.

    Finally we have the early Microsoft Serial Mouse (FCC ID: C3K7PN 9939) with a 25-pin serial connector and buttons that curved over the front edge of the mouse. This mouse also had clickless buttons. Upon disassembly one finds that the buttons are simple dome microswitches, which must mean that you can get such microswitches in both clickfull and clickless versions. Again, this is a simple opto-mechanical two-button mouse.