25th Anniversary: Razer and their Mice

Even though they actually started in 1998, Razer has been churning out PC Products Left and right since 1999.

One of their very first products is this mouse:

The Razer Boomslang.

This was the mouse that put Razer on the forefront of PC Gaming when it launched in 1999.

It was launched when Gamers wanted to have a mouse to help them play their favorite FPS Games such as Quake III Arena, Half-Life, Unreal Tournament, etc.

It came in a near-overkill packaging that looks like an aluminum container meant to hold your Danish Desserts.

The mouse as seen from above is tucked in snuggly in a foam insert.

And here's a human hand holding the mouse in all of it's glory.

(It's actually Linus Sebastian's hand by the way)

This was before gaming mice had multiple Buttons. 

Back then, 3 buttons were the maximum you can ask for.

And what operating system were people using back then?

Though that was the majority of users back then.

Some still ran 95, some ran NT 4.0, some ran a flavor of Linux, and some just had MACs back in the day.

One thing that is indictive of this mouse is that it's a USB Mouse.

Yes. That USB.

Back in 1999, USB 1.1 was the standard.

And you thought people didn't use USB until the Windows XP era. Did you?

Truth of the matter is that USB during the Windows XP era was mostly 2.0.....

And to a lesser extent: 3.0..... though by that point, people were using Windows 7 when the USB 3.0 standard was introduced.

Truth of the matter though is that USB has been with us since 1996,

starting with Intel's Socket 7 board specification.

Though the first boards didn't include it out of the box, it did have support for breakout cables.

Though USB could only be enabled at first via BIOS updates and settings as well as drivers required to get it running on Windows 95 and later.

Later motherboards released during the Slot 1, Super Socket 7, and iMac G3 era, put USB in as an out-of-the-box requirement.

But if USB wasn't your cup of tea back then, especially with older standards and/or reducing input lag,

Razer got you covered with the inclusion of the USB-to-PS/2 dongle included.

Oh how nice of them to give you that back then.

One other thing to show off that this was released in 1999 is if you look underneath the mouse

Yes. Even in 1999, Razer still made the mouse an OPTO-MECHANICAL deal.

What's an opto-mechanical mouse?

Well it's a mouse that uses a ball to track your movement.

The ball rubs on rollers which are actually stems that connect to encoding disks.

The disks have holes in them and that's for the little LEDs to shine through.

So it's still optical but it's well hidden from normal view.

Oh and by the way, the balls may be rubber but that's because it's actually a steel ball that's been coated around with a rubber.

Anyway, the Boomslang gave way for future Razer mice in the coming years.

All with Snake and Spider themes for names.

One of them is a mouse I actually use called the DEATHADDER ELITE.

I actually got this mouse from a Value Village Thrift Shop back in 2023 because I've been running into some reliability issues with my Logitech Mouse's Kailh Switches for the mouse buttons.

And believe it or not, My Razer Mouse is still working even after 1 year since purchase.

This is the premiere edition of my Anniversaries series of Posts for certain things.

I've got more anniversaries to look forward to.

Update as of December 1 2024:

I've since switched to a Logitech G502 Hero Gaming Mouse for my line of work.

I still have the Razer Mouse but it's currently in storage.