Classic Computer Magazine Archive COMPUTE! ISSUE 132 / AUGUST 1991 / PAGE 46

Logitech Mouseman Cordless. (evaluation)
by Jill Champion

The best-laid plans of mice and men, or rather mice and Logitech, have finally come together. The result is the MouseMan Cordless, a mouse that runs mazes around any trackball or short-tailed mouse that dares to come near it.

Movement of the MouseMan Cordless is practically unlimited without a cord to get in the way. The moust itself is light and easy to move, and the buttons press easily. I found the tracking a bit too sensitive at the default setting, but that's easily fixed with the CLICK pop-up menu included in the software.

The MouseMan is programmed with an adjustable ballistic effect that causes the cursor to speed up and slow down with your movements. Low sensitivity in tandem with a high ballistic effect gave me the most control and the best feel.

Installation is a snap. A radio transmitter in the mouse unit controls the onscreen pointer. Its eight-channel receiver plugs into your computer's serial port or PS/2 dedicated port.

Software includes mouse drivers; Mouse-2-3, for use with Lotus 1-2-3 versions 2.2 and lower, LOGI-MENUS, which contains other pre-programmed menus for popular nonmouse applications; and GO-MENU, which allows you to create or customize your own menus. Another nice feature is the ability to swap buttons for left-handed use, which, surprisingly, doesn't feel that awkward.

My only real criticism is that I found no advantage to having the unit shaped for my right hand. A smaller unit designed for either hand would have been a lot more comfortable.

Although Logitech's MouseMan Cordless isn't perfect, it could, with a little refinement, be the best thing that ever happened to computer mice.