Primordial mouse-mats
Eleven years, ten months and 25 days ago, I reviewed the original Everglide mouse mats.
Everglide’s “Attack Pads” were the first hard-plastic mouse “pads” to achieve any commercial success. The concept of a mouse mat that you actually paid money for was a bit ridiculous at the time, but since most people were still using opto-mechanical mice then, a hard mat with a textured surface actually did help accuracy a bit, and reduced gunking-up of the little rollers a lot.
All-surface optical mice have been the standard for years now, but a lot of gamers are still picky about their mouse-mat, to get exactly the right amount of friction. Or just to get something that doesn’t wear out after a year of StarCraft/Team Fortress. The original polypropylene polyethylene Attack Pads lasted bloody forever; five years of frequent use will smooth ‘em out a fair bit, but they’re still not what you’d call fragile.
The black Everglide mats still work fine with optical mice. Actually, modern opticals may be fine on the translucent-white Everglide mats as well, but don’t quote me on that.
The Everglide mats spawned many descendants, and even some mildly hilarious drama. And now, the other day, I got an e-mail from a nice lady who worked for the company that actually manufactured the Everglide mats back in 1998.
(Well, she says that’s who she is. If this is some sort of scam, it’s targeting a pretty darn narrow niche.)
She’s got “about 200″ original black mats, of the type Everglide themselves haven’t sold for ages, and she’s selling them cheap on eBay.
Apparently these mats are all slightly irregular, but perfectly usable. The problems are restricted to “a few uneven edges here and there along with some misprints”. (Any small imperfections in these products really are evidence of their hand-crafted nature; the bevelled edges of the early Everglides were routed by hand.)
They’re only $US10.95 delivered within the USA, which strikes me as a perfectly acceptable price for a shiny new piece of gaming history that’ll last for years of heavy use, even if you do have to pare off a rough bit on the edge somewhere.
(No international shipping, unfortunately. You could try contacting the seller via their eBay store if you’re outside the USA and desperate to buy.)







