Mouse Cursor History (and why I made my own)
Posy4 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2022–2026
explainer · general · evergreen · 2022–2026 on HN
Posy gives a short history of the computer mouse cursor, from early straight pointers to the tilted arrow, comparing Apple and Windows designs. He then explains why he designed his own cursor set and offers it as a free download.
HN treats it as the definitive, short, well-made video on mouse cursors and pulls it out whenever cursor design, pixel perfection or the tilted arrow comes up.
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7 comments from Hacker News
The best video on mouse cursors I've seen, by Posy: ▶ this video It doesn't exactly answer the question, but I -- someone who doesn't watch video and wants text, articles -- have watched this video twice over. It's worth it :)
Time for one of my favourite Youtube videos, by Posy (Michiel de Boer.) 'Mouse cursor history (and why I made my own).' ▶ this video It runs through the history of mouse cursors, as well as problems with some of the standard ones, and shows, among other things, historical cursors which were straight and not tilted. It is one of those amazing videos that make the internet worthwhile, is short, and is by the author of Posy's Cursor Pack, link
I was just about to say that. There's an amazing video by Posy documenting mouse cursor history, and even provides his own cursor pack: ▶ this video link
If you want to investigate the history of the macOS cursor, and other cursor schemes, I highly recommend this video: ▶ this video + link
This is a really good video about how Apple cares about being pixel perfect compared to Windows with something simple and obvious like the mouse cursor icon: ▶ this video The improvements he made are also quite nice, Microsoft should take note...
For a better deep dive into mouse cursors with more information, there's Posy's "Mouse Cursor History (and why I made my own)": ▶ this video It also shows how absolutely horrid Windows' cursor designs are. They always were. I still remember making my own sets back in the early 2000s when DeviantArt was the home of desktop customization.
Timestamps: History of OS cursors from System 1.0 to recent MacOS, and Windows 1.0 to Windows 10: ▶ this video How the current Windows 10 cursor is wonky: ▶ this video (probably the most interesting part of the video) He ends up fixing the wonky mouse cursor in Windows and makes the download available in the show notes. link