The GyroPoint Mouse made by Gyration, and it does more than the normal mouse. It doesn't have 16 buttons like some mouses have in the past (it has 4 buttons). It does look different, predominantly black and egg shaped. Well, you ask - whats the difference? It is in the name "gyro". This mouse has a gyroscope in it (hey Steve What’s a gyroscope?). From Gyrations Website:

"Invented centuries ago, gyroscopes are used to detect the motion and position (attitude and direction) of objects and instruments such as ships and airplanes. German inventor G. C. Bohnenberger invented the first device resembling today's mechanical gyroscope in the mid-1800's. In 1882, the French scientist Jean Foucault gave the gyroscope its name when he successfully used the device to demonstrate that the Earth rotates on its axis. Gyroscopes came into widespread use in the early 1900's, when the advent of Steel Hulled ships rendered the magnetic compass useless. While the gyroscope was revolutionizing maritime navigation, the fledgling aeronautics industry began developing gyro-based instruments to solve problems never before faced by science: the guiding and controlling of a machine in free flight. To this day, the Artificial horizon, based on a gyroscope, is a pilot's most valuable instrument".

I unpacked the mouse and noticed a button on the bottom of it, this senses whether the mouse is on the desktop or up in the air. The other odd thing was an adapter that plugs into your keyboard port and also the serial port. This adapter supplies power to the mouse from the keyboard, you can also use the PS/2 port without this adapter (PS/2 ports supply power). The installation was easy and the mouse driver I was using (Microsoft) works with this mouse.

On to the real-world tryout. I first tried the mouse in Various Windows 95 applications, word processing, image editing, and spreadsheets. This was fine - the sensitivity was great, a little move on the mouse pad reflected a little on the screen, this is a problem I've found with lesser mice. Then I lifted the mouse up and tried to move around, no luck. I guess I should have read the manual. After reading a little I found that I had to double click on one of the buttons on the side to enable hand motion to be reflected, holding down the button will allow you to limit the movement of the mouse while in the air. the other side button becomes your left mouse button, this is rather ergonomic (comfortable), because when holding the mouse, your thumb can press this one. The right mouse button stays the right mouse button at all times. Also usefull is that your index finger works well with this one. I now had this down, easy as pie.

Well, I thought this is great I can lean back and browse the Internet. The Net doesn't always require lots of keyboard input so this makes it easy move away from the keyboard. Surf I did, it takes a while to get used to how much hand movement you need. Up and down left and right change as you rotate your hand, so it does take some getting used to. There is also the wierd things that seem to happen, notice I said lean back, when you do the mouse moves, this is where you get used to clicking the Gyropoint into a desktop mode, the mouse doesn't move until you allow it to. Within an hour I was comfortable with this mouse both in the air and on the desktop.

The GyroPoint mouse comes with an adapter for non-PS2 mouse ports, and it has a long cord so that you can do presentations and walk around a bit. It also came with a mouse pad. The mouse works great and the freedom is nice, look something up and move from the desk. I will try to demonstrate this at the January meeting.

Gyration also makes a wireless mouse (radio signals for presentation purposes, this is great). Gyration is located in California and on the Web at http://www.gyration.com.