The mouse is designed to control the movement of the cursor, or pointer, on the computer screen. It allows movement along a surface to help move that pointer.
The mouse is named as such because it looks a little like a mouse, with a mouse-like shape that has a connecting wire, which looks like the tail.
There are three types of the mouse, the mechanical, the optomechanical and the optical. The first has a ball on the underside to help it move, the second has optical sensors to detect motion of the mouse and the third uses a laser to detect movement.
The mouse can either be plugged in directly to the computer, or it can be cordless, where it doesn't connect to the computer and uses radiowaves to commu- nicate with the machine
