They wanted the mouse to have a name like “Microsoft® Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000” but they accidentally used the wrong encoding and the name was invalid. Because they already made thousands of devices without properly testing them, the “obvious” solution was to patch the Bluetooth stack on every single computer in the world to fix this issue. It’s the only Bluetooth device released in computer history that requires this.
Leave it to Microsoft to give a mouse a five-word brand name.
Probably had a whiteboard and every executive in the room had to go up and add a word lol
There was 7999 before it as well
Lots of drivers are doing things like this I bet. It’s much easier to fix software than hardware.
I remember when one of the Guitar Hero games was first released for Xbox, they soon had a big problem where lots of guitar peripherals were behaving strangely. I think in the end the whammy bar wasn’t always going to what the sensor read as 100 or 0 or something like that because of weak springs or poor physical fit with the plastic, and in the end the fix was basically to adjust how the values were read in software.
I’ve got a lot of time for Microsoft hardware. I remember around 2000 when if you wanted a mouse or keyboard you basically had to buy whatever abomination Logitech was flogging at the time. Then Microsoft came along and started making stuff that was actually a little sexy.
Like this https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EOhVKW_UUAATi4K.jpg:large
Best keyboard I ever had. Well, top 3.
I had a Microsoft mousr in the 90’s (9 pin serial, ball), that frankly was better than any other mouse at the time.
It was Synaptics that introduced competition to Logitech.
My kid just had an issue with his Logitech wireless mouse right clicking with both buttons!
I looked in settings and then I used the mouse on Linux and windows and got the same effect. It turns out Logitech mice use piece of shit button switches.
But no problem I fixed the problem in like 5 minutes once I knew what the problem was. I gave my kid a wired mouse temporarily. Then I went to Amazon and searched for wireless mice. No more Logitech for me thanks.
microsoft sidewinder x4 was a great keyboard. Too bad they stopped making them.
I think I read somewhere that they were one of the top Linux contributors back then because of all the device drivers they supplied.
I bet that same workaround is probably implemented in Linux as well.
Linux would probably handle it gracefully.
Wouldn’t surprise me if it doesn’t check the UTF-8 validity at all and just lets the apps get broken UTF-8 where most of the time nothing horrible happens. That or they just strip invalid characters.
