LGR Oddware - MousePen Input Device
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Date: 2022-04-14
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Comments and reviews: 10
Rogerio
OMG! I had that thing back in the mid nineties! I bought mine second hand from a former employer. He bought it as a gift for his son that wanted it to work on art programs of the time but the thing was so clumsy that the boy quickly gave up on it so when he noticed that I had artistic inclinations as well, he didn't lose the chance to cut down his losses. I acquired it as a poorly conceived attempt to use it as a Wacom replacement - that costed a fortune at the time and could hardly be bought in Brazil at the time - but soon I reached the same conclusions as the reviewer.
To be honest, it wasn't that bad as an actual mouse. Yeah, the hand grip thing was something you had to get used to and I can't quite remember it but it probably would make your wrist suffer after long sessions. But it actually worked fine as a regular mouse - in fact, there was no need to install drivers whatsoever: anything that supported a MS or a PS/2 mouse would work with it - so I tried my darndest to see if I could make it work as a drawing tool for me but just there wasn't anything that it did that was better than a regular mouse. Didn't take long for me to give up and put it aside as a nice looking oddity.
My MousePen looked slightly different from that model on the video though: mine had round corners which made it somewhat prettier and a blue rubber pen holder that wasn't much better than the weird wooden shape thing shown in the video. Everything else was identical.
Every time I look at my Intuos, I fondly remember of that little odd thing even if it turned out to be useless. :)
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OMG! I had that thing back in the mid nineties! I bought mine second hand from a former employer. He bought it as a gift for his son that wanted it to work on art programs of the time but the thing was so clumsy that the boy quickly gave up on it so when he noticed that I had artistic inclinations as well, he didn't lose the chance to cut down his losses. I acquired it as a poorly conceived attempt to use it as a Wacom replacement - that costed a fortune at the time and could hardly be bought in Brazil at the time - but soon I reached the same conclusions as the reviewer.
To be honest, it wasn't that bad as an actual mouse. Yeah, the hand grip thing was something you had to get used to and I can't quite remember it but it probably would make your wrist suffer after long sessions. But it actually worked fine as a regular mouse - in fact, there was no need to install drivers whatsoever: anything that supported a MS or a PS/2 mouse would work with it - so I tried my darndest to see if I could make it work as a drawing tool for me but just there wasn't anything that it did that was better than a regular mouse. Didn't take long for me to give up and put it aside as a nice looking oddity.
My MousePen looked slightly different from that model on the video though: mine had round corners which made it somewhat prettier and a blue rubber pen holder that wasn't much better than the weird wooden shape thing shown in the video. Everything else was identical.
Every time I look at my Intuos, I fondly remember of that little odd thing even if it turned out to be useless. :)
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Jek
I mean the idea is only kind of outdated, people reach for their phone more than they reach for a mouse, which more often have pens than mice. So I would say given the extreme saturation of mobile devices as the most commonly used computers, its still true that people are more likely to reach for a pen (stylus) than a mouse
that thing is still the best ballpoint pen I've ever seen lol
the idea of putting the mechanics in the stylus rather than the pad is actually really interesting, it's inherently much cheaper, if you could get it working really well it actually might be a good solution. If you made the ball much smaller and more angled, like a normal ballpoint pen, and read the motion of the ball with higher precision lasers. Sure the loss of visual feedback on the page is bad, but perhaps one could even design a model that has ink slip past the ball at the front so it can both be a physical pen and a computer input device at the same time. People who are used to traditional stylus rendering might enjoy such a device, being able to input drawings as vector data while drawing as normal
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I mean the idea is only kind of outdated, people reach for their phone more than they reach for a mouse, which more often have pens than mice. So I would say given the extreme saturation of mobile devices as the most commonly used computers, its still true that people are more likely to reach for a pen (stylus) than a mouse
that thing is still the best ballpoint pen I've ever seen lol
the idea of putting the mechanics in the stylus rather than the pad is actually really interesting, it's inherently much cheaper, if you could get it working really well it actually might be a good solution. If you made the ball much smaller and more angled, like a normal ballpoint pen, and read the motion of the ball with higher precision lasers. Sure the loss of visual feedback on the page is bad, but perhaps one could even design a model that has ink slip past the ball at the front so it can both be a physical pen and a computer input device at the same time. People who are used to traditional stylus rendering might enjoy such a device, being able to input drawings as vector data while drawing as normal
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Tuck
Nice! I had the Appoint Brand Pen Mouse for my Legacy Mac PowerPC 7200/90 Desktop. As an Artist, the Pen Mouse was still a bit clunky but I no longer had to tell my friends I was digi-drawing with a bar of soap. Don't know how I got by without a scroll wheel (or did it have one, can't remember. The emergence of Artful goodies like the Wacom Tablet most likely sent the Pen Mouse to Dinosaur Land. I can't believe I'm seeing a re-emergence attempt of several different Pen Mice creeping back into the computer market (like the ones on As Seen On TV.
Haha! If you guys are still reading, then it's humor time! The center holed wood block around frames 4: 50 is a simple included accessory to make it easier to castrate yourself for buying this unit (or is it now eunuch!
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Nice! I had the Appoint Brand Pen Mouse for my Legacy Mac PowerPC 7200/90 Desktop. As an Artist, the Pen Mouse was still a bit clunky but I no longer had to tell my friends I was digi-drawing with a bar of soap. Don't know how I got by without a scroll wheel (or did it have one, can't remember. The emergence of Artful goodies like the Wacom Tablet most likely sent the Pen Mouse to Dinosaur Land. I can't believe I'm seeing a re-emergence attempt of several different Pen Mice creeping back into the computer market (like the ones on As Seen On TV.
Haha! If you guys are still reading, then it's humor time! The center holed wood block around frames 4: 50 is a simple included accessory to make it easier to castrate yourself for buying this unit (or is it now eunuch!
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Clark
Dude. I drew SO MUCH pixel art and Flash cartoons via a Mouse back in the 90's. Tablets were abysmal and overpriced up the ass back then. Hundreds of dollars for maybe 6 inch tablet that didn't work very well.
Believe it or not this thing looks like it was the answer to my adolescent prayers. Long hard nights, red eyed and caffiene fueled, burning the midnight oil on RPG Maker, Game Maker and Flash. I would've gargled donkey sperm for one of these in those days. TBH I still kind of want one, even though I own a 12 inch XP pen nowadays. I think this would still be an excellent peripheral for a serious pixel artist today. Well, if it were USB or wireless anyway. I adore the chunky retro design.
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Dude. I drew SO MUCH pixel art and Flash cartoons via a Mouse back in the 90's. Tablets were abysmal and overpriced up the ass back then. Hundreds of dollars for maybe 6 inch tablet that didn't work very well.
Believe it or not this thing looks like it was the answer to my adolescent prayers. Long hard nights, red eyed and caffiene fueled, burning the midnight oil on RPG Maker, Game Maker and Flash. I would've gargled donkey sperm for one of these in those days. TBH I still kind of want one, even though I own a 12 inch XP pen nowadays. I think this would still be an excellent peripheral for a serious pixel artist today. Well, if it were USB or wireless anyway. I adore the chunky retro design.
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Douglas
When I was a kid I lost the pen that went with my drawing tablet and while searching for a replacement I could afford I bought a wireless optical mouse in the shape of a pen by mistake as i didn't really understand that drawing tablet pens werent intercompatible and thought from the branding that it was one such device but was very dissapointed when I got it obviously. It was the same idea as this but in a sleeker mid 2000s black plastic case.
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When I was a kid I lost the pen that went with my drawing tablet and while searching for a replacement I could afford I bought a wireless optical mouse in the shape of a pen by mistake as i didn't really understand that drawing tablet pens werent intercompatible and thought from the branding that it was one such device but was very dissapointed when I got it obviously. It was the same idea as this but in a sleeker mid 2000s black plastic case.
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jameswalker199
I hold a pen like a pen, so I could probably get on with it, but they clearly didn't think about people who do the fist-grip thing when designing it.
Mind you, I don't know what the education climate was like back then in a foreign country, so maybe only the rich business execs they were aiming this at were taught to use a pen in private schools, and everyone else was given a pen and told to work it out themselves?
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I hold a pen like a pen, so I could probably get on with it, but they clearly didn't think about people who do the fist-grip thing when designing it.
Mind you, I don't know what the education climate was like back then in a foreign country, so maybe only the rich business execs they were aiming this at were taught to use a pen in private schools, and everyone else was given a pen and told to work it out themselves?
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Demonic
This thing would be completely unusable for me due to the fact that I'm left handed so I would naturally want to use it with my left hand.
But I use a mouse in my right hand.
This means my brain will struggle either way as in one hand it will say -USE THE OTHER! - and when flipping to that hand my brain will still shout -USE THE OTHER! - and just give me a major headache.
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This thing would be completely unusable for me due to the fact that I'm left handed so I would naturally want to use it with my left hand.
But I use a mouse in my right hand.
This means my brain will struggle either way as in one hand it will say -USE THE OTHER! - and when flipping to that hand my brain will still shout -USE THE OTHER! - and just give me a major headache.
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Todd
Reminds me of the cat, that Radio Shack gave away or was charging very little for. But you had to install their special software, which included an ad for the cat. Why would I want to watch an ad for the thing I bought? It scanned universal product codes (UPC, and would send you to related web sites. If you scanned the code on a Coke, it would send you to Coca Cola's website.
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Reminds me of the cat, that Radio Shack gave away or was charging very little for. But you had to install their special software, which included an ad for the cat. Why would I want to watch an ad for the thing I bought? It scanned universal product codes (UPC, and would send you to related web sites. If you scanned the code on a Coke, it would send you to Coca Cola's website.
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Dana
I think I had an Appoint penmouse, but was not happy with it. On the other hand, I used an Appoint Thumbelina mini-trackball to teach computer classes in a classroom with a projector, and I absolutely loved the Thumbelina. It was so easy to use. I could hold it in my hand and use it as I was teaching, which I think was less distracting to the students.
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I think I had an Appoint penmouse, but was not happy with it. On the other hand, I used an Appoint Thumbelina mini-trackball to teach computer classes in a classroom with a projector, and I absolutely loved the Thumbelina. It was so easy to use. I could hold it in my hand and use it as I was teaching, which I think was less distracting to the students.
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Damaniel3
I bought a paint program on eBay a couple weeks ago called Splash! by Spinnaker Software - I'm pretty sure that it and Telepaint are the same program! Splash! would be the optimal DOS-era paint program, except that it only supports its own format, and that format only supports 320x200, 256 color images. I wonder if Telepaint works the same way.
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I bought a paint program on eBay a couple weeks ago called Splash! by Spinnaker Software - I'm pretty sure that it and Telepaint are the same program! Splash! would be the optimal DOS-era paint program, except that it only supports its own format, and that format only supports 320x200, 256 color images. I wonder if Telepaint works the same way.
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