oldmouse blog minis; trackballs
1960s: Engelbart's first mouse; Telefunken "Rollkugel"
1966: Orbit X-Y Ball Tracker
1968: Engelbart's NLS mouse
1970s: Mystery wheel mouse; Hawley Mouse House
1973: Alto I [2]
1981: Xerox 8010 Star [2]
1982: Logitech; VisiOn GUI; Mouse Systems; KoalaPad
1983: Hawley Mark II X063X; Lisa; Microsoft bus mouse
1984: Macintosh; Microsoft serial mouse
1985: NeXT Computer
1986: Hawley DEC mouse; GEOS; Atari ST mouse; Commodore 1350 Mouse
1987: IBM PS/2; Microsoft 'dove bar' mouse
1996: USB (Universal Serial Bus)
1997: Microsoft PC 97 standard

oldmouse.com

Hawley Mark II X063X Mouses

In an undated ad, Hawley Mouse House boasts about inventing its first digital mouse in 1972. (Stanford Making the Macintosh) The Alto I mouse substantiates this claim to fame by its prominent embossing of the name Hawley alongside Xerox on its innards. It wasn't until 1983, however, that Jack Hawley produced his own mouse, the Mark II X063X, with his company name only and the copyright year emblazoned inside.

The Hawley mouse looks industrial with its sparse little block design and homely black plug, compared to the contemporary Xerox Star mouse. The bottom of the Hawley Mark II is reminiscent of the Alto's mouse except with the cord on the opposite end. The Hawley's big stainless steel mouse ball resides at the wrist edge and communicates the x-y coordinate position to the cursor. Two small stainless steel balls serve as rollers on the cord end. The Hawley mouse motherboard looks akin to the Alto mouse's, but brightly colored, much prettier than the outside.

A patent filed by IBM in 1995 for a pointing device cites the Hawley: "Two different implementations of the mouse protocol unit 37 have been known. One involves quadrature signals (pulse trains) and is known as a parallel implementation. The parallel implementation was developed and manufactured by Hawley Laboratories of Berkeley, Calif." (Patent 5764219)

Hawley ads featuring the 1983 X063X mouse undoubtedly target engineers and military technicians, who were some of the earliest computer users. Hawley must also intend to challenge input devices produced by Koala and Mouse Systems for personal computers. One ad claims,

"the MOUSE HOUSE™ is superior to any other mouse made. Its combination of accuracy, speed, and ease of operation is impossible to attain with input devices such as touch tablets, light pens, or track balls." (Stanford Making the Macintosh)

Another ad states the specifications:

"The HAWLEY X063X Mouse moves the cursor in any direction on a computer display screen, in direct proportion to its own movement, with a resolution of 200 ppi. The user-friendly Mouse rolls freely on any convenient surface." (Stanford Making the Macintosh)

X063X Mouses

Three X063Xes featured here are distinctively colored, each has a tale:: white with black buttons - serial no. 07305; black with white buttons & label - ser. no. 07350; black with tri-colored buttons - serial no. 10154

Related mouses:: mystery mouse; Hawley DEC mouse

Three X063X flavors:: vanilla; licorice; jelly beans

External Links:: Transparent Hawley mouse photos; Stanford: Making the Macintosh