I recall using that 3-button SPARC mouse on a rigid, semi-reflective, gridded mouse pad, and also a Logitech optical trackball, with patterned black dots on a red marble, long before optical mouse tech could work on any surface.
If you waited until the MS Intellimouse to go optical to relieve your Photoshop woes, you weren't being very proactive. I even recall using a Wacom stylus-tablet, and I wasn't even a graphics creator or manipulator.
I'd argue that those mouses from around 2000 with the vibration motors in them were more revolutionary to mousing, as it allowed for cheap haptic feedback. It's really too bad the TouchSense tech wasn't licensed loosely enough by Immersion to get more than annoying toy applications for it to alter your desktop experience (and Black & White). Every time I get a little vibration bump through my finger on a touchscreen, I remember that could have already been everywhere 15 years ago.
I had the same recollection - I'm pretty sure I used a Sun Workstation with an optical mouse back in the late 80s. Clearly Microsoft did not invent the optical mouse, but the early ones required a special gridded pad.
If you waited until the MS Intellimouse to go optical to relieve your Photoshop woes, you weren't being very proactive. I even recall using a Wacom stylus-tablet, and I wasn't even a graphics creator or manipulator.
I'd argue that those mouses from around 2000 with the vibration motors in them were more revolutionary to mousing, as it allowed for cheap haptic feedback. It's really too bad the TouchSense tech wasn't licensed loosely enough by Immersion to get more than annoying toy applications for it to alter your desktop experience (and Black & White). Every time I get a little vibration bump through my finger on a touchscreen, I remember that could have already been everywhere 15 years ago.