This appears to be from the book How Products are Made: An Illustrated Guide to Product Manufacturing (Volume 5, ISBN 0787624446). Which as far as I can tell was published in 1999.
Many of the details are specific to rolling ball mice (remember those?), but don't overlook the article because of that. The design and manufacturing processes are still relevant to various kinds of electromechanical devices.
And it's interesting to have a look at how such an old-school device was made.
I got frustrated after my previous mouse stopped clicking, but never remembered having trouble with mice "back in the day". So I decided to get an old ball mouse to see how long it would last. So far so good.
The original mouse from Englebart's SRI Augmentation Project was wheeled. Engelbart applied for a patent in 1967 and received it in 1970, for the wooden shell with two metal wheels (computer mouse – U.S. Patent 3,541,541), which he had developed with Bill English, his lead engineer, sometime before 1965. [Wikipedia]
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[ 5.6 ms ] story [ 20.6 ms ] threadMechanical mice.. through hole components...
And it's interesting to have a look at how such an old-school device was made.
Dick Lyon made one of the first optical mice while he was at Xerox PARC. His report on the project is a great read: http://www.dicklyon.com/tech/OMouse/OpticalMouse-Lyon.pdf
Dick Lyon made one of the first optical mice while he was at Xerox PA