Hello,

In the wild and wacky days when compact Macs were new, Kensington Microware 
seemed to put out quite a few Maccessories (their name, not mine).  Some of 
which made immediate sense to me, (e.g. the Swivel, a lazy susan for your 
compact Mac) others, not so much (e.g. their anti-static dust cover).

This one, however, has me somewhat puzzled: it's a Kensington Mouse Holder.

http://i25.tinypic.com/v835as.jpg

http://i31.tinypic.com/veuerb.jpg

http://i26.tinypic.com/6pn4fn.jpg (reverse)

While I understand *what* it's supposed to do, I'm less clear on the *why.*  
Was 
there an actual, practical need for an accessory like this?  Or was this purely 
a "Hey, what the heck!"-kinda offering on the part of Kensington?  I recall 
that, at the time, Mac owners as a whole weren't particularly bothered by the 
prospect of dropping another couple hundred bucks on toys for a machine they'd 
just dropped $2K-plus on, so there were plenty of companies standing by to take 
their money for doodads that may or may not have made real sense to own.  


I suppose I'm having a hard time seeing the need for this because (dredging the 
vaults of memory here) the mice of the mid-Pleistocene either, A) sat on your 
desk or, B) resided in a special mouse compartment of the carrying case you 
were 
using to tote (okay, lug) your 17-pound Mac around to the various places you 
needed to be with it.  


It's not like you were particularly worried about breaking the mouse or 
anything, because the thick plastic Apple used rendered them, if not absolutely 
indestructable, pretty close to it.  Likewise, when the mouse was on your desk, 
the rubber-coated mouse ball was going to pick up every little crumb and speck 
of dust it traveled across *anyway,* so the need to cover the bottom of the 
unit 
either while it was on your desk or in transit doesn't strike me as being very 
pressing. [shrugs]

Can someone who owned and used one of these back then fill us in on why it 
might 
have come in handy?  I'm sure there are some things that are hard to see from 
the vantage point of 2010 that were much more obvious in 1986. : )


Best,

James Fraser

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