I haven’t used every single one and probably never will, but weird, new, or particularly clever ways of interacting with a computer always spark my interest. It’s probably because growing up on the NES, I would get game magazines that had articles describing all the cool stuff they had in Japan and had advertisements for new Nintendo controllers that nearly always looked way better than they worked.

<Digression> In my opinion there were only two good controllers available for the system: the one that came with it and the NES Max. The one it shipped with could take a beating and still work.  The NES max was shaped perfectly and made control much more precise.  And my Dad, who has the use of only one hand, was able to use it to play video games with me.  It’s the only controller that worked for him. Always wanted to get him one of these.< /Digression>

Today, I’m getting a mouse that’s shaped like a pen.  I have no idea if it’s going to be any good but lately I’ve just wanted a mouse with a pen form factor.  Here’s why.  I don’t like working on a graphics tablet for the majority of my designs.  I like using a mouse (I have an Evoluent wired vertical mouse the I’ve been using for years and has been a lovely piece of kit). For some things I use an Intuos (an older model).  But for Illustrator and Rhino, I wanted something that was in-between the two and thought a mouse you held like a pen would be the way to go.

So I did a google search for “mouse pen” and “pen mouse” and there isn’t much to choose from.  There’s the low end of the spectrum - which is what I purchased - and then there’s the high end of the spectrum - which isn’t that high but still high enough where if you got a dud product and couldn’t return it, you’d be sort of pissed.  The reviews were actually better for the cheap one too.  I think the reviews on both though might be marred because the right people might not be using the products, e.g. - people trying to use it just like a mouse or just like a graphics tablet stylus, i.e - the wrong customers; so I don’t put much faith in the good or bad reviews.  QED.

After a couple of weeks playing around with the thing, I’ll let you know how it goes.  It might be that I’ll just end up having to design one of these things myself.