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A Pistol Mouse for Your Fragging Pleasure
ErgoSeating writes "In my search for an ergonomic mouse I stumbled upon something called the PistolMouse. This mouse is shaped like a pistol and uses a trigger as the left button but tracks with an optical sensor on the bottom, not the sight or barrel. In a twist of irony, the mouse is ergonomically shaped because the pistol grip alleviates stress on your carpal tunnel-ridden wrist. Its Linux compatible and looks like it could be just the thing to brighten up my desk. Here is a review of the item with some good pictures." Not sure how it's ironic -- the modern handgun reflects hundreds of years of user testing -- but it looks fun, and a hoot to travel with by air.
Been on Think Geek for ages... http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/6e04/
And it's one button.
Um, what about the safety?
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
i myself purchased one of these pistolmouses around christmas for 40 bucks, it is a very neat design, but i caution those with little desk space, as its about 2 inches longer than the standard mouse
it is also a very sensitive mouse, you'll find yourself turning down mouse sensitivity in some games (max payne, most noticibly)
my game performance hasnt increased at all, but there are a few games i just cannot play with it, games that rely on alot of scroll wheel usage
which brings me to the final point, the scroll wheel, if you use firefox (of course you do) chances are you are constantly middle clicking, well doing it horizontally lets you mess up and scroll/click instead at the same time, it gets annoying, but its not a big turn off
9/10
here
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Posted anonymously - I'm no Karma whore :-)
Monster Gecko PistolMouse FPS
Every so often you get a chance to play with something that just brings out the inner Geek. This is that product. Designed for the hard core FPS player, the PistolMouse replicates the look and feel of a real pistol in a high resolution 800 DPI optical mouse. The PistolMouse FPS uses a high performance optical sensor that tracks surfaces by sampling an image up to 3400 times every second with a high accuracy of 800 dpi (dots per inch). The PistolMouse FPS responds to any movement in 10.9 milliseconds (1/100 of a second) and can sustain the full 800 dpi capture rate at speeds of 12.75 inches per second over a surface. It all sounds good on paper, but let's test this thing in the real world...
The First thing I noticed about the PistolMouse FPS is the high quality packaging. This box jumps out at you. Monster Gecko has really put together an attractive product in a stunning box.
The Pistol itself looks a lot like a replica Air Soft pistol. The design is ergometric with your hand naturally gripping the trigger and resting on the secondary button. The scroll wheel is always in easy reach of your thumb. The design allows the PistolMouse to be used with equal precision both left and right handed.
Pictures don't do this product justice. The PistolMouse is sturdy without feeling heavy or unresponsive at all. The triggers are crafted from color matched aluminum. Even after several days of twitch gaming it still feels as solid as day one.
All that aside, the real thrill is gripping the pistol and dishing out frags with a vengeance. The feel of a real pistol in your hand brings a new level of immersion to your favorite FPS. It's also a great attention getter; I can only begin to describe the constant stream of friends that want to try it out, even my wife had to try it! And who hasn't taken liberties with those crazy arcade pistols?
I put the PistolMouse through its paces using the latest Microsoft Drivers and my favorite twitch games, PainKiller and Battlefield: 1942. For prolonged testing I ran it through a marathon PlanetSide session. My mouse pad of choice was the EverGlide Giganta and the new XTrac Ripper XL. No driver is needed; the USB plug and play was painless.
There is a bit of a learning curve to the PistolMouse FPS. The most immediate change is the trigger function. Your Trigger acts as the primary fire and will both single and double click. This allows you to hold down the fire button for some nice automatic action. The secondary trigger is tucked under the trigger guard and after a few misfires was pretty easy to use. The scroll wheel is easy to find without looking down and very responsive. Once you get the feel down you notice the natural ergometric design makes your left to right motions much faster than with a traditional mouse. Even after nearly 4 hours of play I felt no wrist strain.
The larger size foot print over whelmed my Giganta at 6 ½" by 3" but worked nicely on the Ripper XL. Motion was fluid and responsive even during high speed play. The only drawback over my regular mouse is the PistolMouse only supports the functions of a traditional 3 button Scroll mouse. This 3 button limitation means my trusty old mouse won't be replaced yet. $69.95 may be a bit pricy for a FPS specialty mouse but with the level of quality Monster Gecko has put into the PistolMouse FPS, this might just put that smile on your face.
Right now Monster Gecko is offering a 30 Day money back Guarantee on the Pistol Mouse FPS through www.monstergecko.com. What have you got to loose?
Club Overclocker Rating
Innovation:
10 out of 10
Performance:
9.0 out of 10
Quality:
9.0 out of 10
Stability:
N/A
Compatibility:
7.5 out of 10
Overclocking:
N/A
Software Pack:
N/A
No, actually, it has a right click on the trigger guard and a scroll wheel (which I'm assuming also acts like a 3rd button).
Oh, and remember what I said about them being nice to look at, that is only the first time you see it, after about a minute the novelty wears off and you realize how dumb looking it really is.
GENERATION 25: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
Having said that, one does see obviously illegal-import gaming 'guns' for sale at markets and stuff from time to time, and at least one online store in Australia claims to have stock of this PistolMouse, so some folks are sneaking under the radar.
Vertical mice aren't anything new though. I've been using the 3M 'Renaissance Mouse' for years now - I've got four of them in various places at home and work. A couple of random images courtesy google image search here.
A key point I've found with the 3M mice is that they're pretty hard to control for a few days, and you never really regain the fine control that you have with a regular horizontal mouse. I can't help but wonder if the relative lack of control will be a problem for gamers. Remember, this 'gun' must slide around on the surface of a table, so it's going to operate like a vertical mouse, not a free-moving gun. I often keep two mice plugged into my computers - one of these for long-term comfort, and a regular mouse for when I need fine control, say with photoshop or the Gimp.
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
got one as a gift; its comfy but counterintuitive. not recommended.
You're probably thinking of the venerable .44 magnum which is the gold standard "hand cannon" round. It was also Dirty Harry's cartridge of choice (fired from a S&W model 29).
Also, the common ".45" is the .45 ACP cartridge, which while hugely popular in the shooting community, is significantly less powerful than the .44 magnum (roughly 50% the muzzle energy).
Your left hand is busy with the movement keys, and foot pedals are too slow. Check out Belkin's Nostromo n52, though.
Teaser: The advice given at the bottom of this comment should be read followed by anyone who has a FIREARM, a CAR, A COMPUTER, A CREDIT LINE/CARD, or a CHILD.
And as you point out, it only takes about a week of training for a thickheaded soldier to use a crossbow. To use a firearm at close range only requires watching TV - people successfully kill all the time with only that much training.
Okay, so having watched on TV a firearm being used, I can SAFELY defend my home and cause no risk to myself, my family, or my neighbors.
BULLSHIT.
You never see the people on TV learn how to even load the bloody firearm (yes, people do have to learn this, magazines don't come from the factory fully loaded, and many folks don't understand why you have to pull the slide back, nor where to find the button to press that lets the slide fall closed again... see my response to the next quote.)
You never see people on TV conern themselves with the corect selection of amunition. They never pick a bird-shot round when using a shotgun to defend themselves in a high-density urban setting (think apartments) you never see them choose frangible bullets to prevent over-penetration of any missed-rounds. Rounds that would othsewise transit through MANY walls before coming to rest. You never see them worry about the kids room being down the same hall that they're now using as a shooting gallery. Of course that'd make for damned boring TV.
PS: 12 Gua Remington Pump with 8 round magazine, first 3 shots are #8 bird shot, next 5 rounds are #4 shot. If three painful blasts of birdshot dosen't thwart someones intentions to do my family harm the #4 shot will most defenitely cause fatal harm to them (assuming the #8 wasn't fired at extremely close range.) My husband uses a Colt M1911 clone with "glass bullets" that will not penetrate more than 2 layers of sheetrock, but will carry a good deal of energy into a person who intends to do him or his family harm.
So you have to cock a semiautomatic or automatic weapon. Once. And you'd do this well before you entered combat, if you knew it was coming. If you cock your weapon after that, you're ejecting a good round from the chamber - wasting ammunition and making a fool of yourself. If a character walks up to another character and cocks his gun, either the director or the character is a fool.
You sir hve been watching ALOT of TV for your Firearms operation lessons.
COCKING a weapon means bringing the hammer (or hammer replacement) into position to strike the fireing pin (as opposed to being in a "rest" or "lowered" position.)
Weapons with external hamers often have this done automaticly when a round is chambered via the operation of a slide or lever.
Weapons with internal hammers are cocked ONLY by the cycling of the fireing action (cycle the bolt, slide, break-open the action, raise the falling block, etc.)
For example, you can not just "cock" a Glock sidearm. They have internal hammers that are set into the fireing position by retracting the slide fully reward and allowing the slide to fall into the battery position.
I've yet to see a movie where someone with an self-loading weapon (covers automatics and semi-automatics) cock a hammer. Often you see REVOLVERS getting cocked. Sometimes a slide is pulled back and is allowed to fall into battery (one assumes the weapon was carried with a full magazine but no round in the chamber.) But, I've yet to see someone cock a Glock on tv (by far the most popular gun on the TV shows I've watched.) Why don't people use old M1911s on TV? You CAN cock those, they have an external hammer.
But, point being, COCKING a firearm does NOT eject a good round for the chamber. Cycling the action may well do so, but setting an external hammer into a firing position will NOT do so.
I truely hope you do not have a firearm in your home as you appear to be lacking in some basic knowlege of firearms operation. If you own a firearm please seek some profesional instruction on the safe use of them. If you don't have one then don't get one till you get some saftey instruction.
PS: I think this advise just given should be followed by EVERYONE with a FIREARM, a CAR, a COMPUTER, a CREDIT CARD, or a CHILD.
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Correct. Glocks have three safeties which means you cannot discharge the firearm by dropping it, but they are all released when you pull the trigger.
This is why Glocks are a favorite of law enforcement whose buffoons tend to drop their weapons (thus injuring their fellow officers) as well as forget to take off external safeties in firefights (thus getting themselves killed.)
However, you DO need to practice trigger finger control with a Glock - keep it OUT of the trigger guard until you need to fire.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
The Perific Dual Mouse already does this, except it can also be used as a regular mouse, two-handed, pistol-grip, you name it. It's probably even better ergonimically speaking, since it allows for more varied usage. And, it has more buttons and a trackball. Win-win!
Money for nothing, pix for free