Ever looked at a computer mouse and wondered what it'd be like to stuff an entire computer into one? YouTuber Electo has, and posted the results over on Hackaday.com in not one but two projects. The more recent hacked-together mouse as a computer project was shared on Hackaday on Thursday, but Electo actually performed this hardware modding on September 1, 2023.
Below, we've embedded 12-minute video where Electo details the build process for not only the main "Mouse as a PC" build pictured above, but also two side mini PC projects that he experiments with during the process. This includes a PC and projector integrated into a mini keyboard, and an entire NUC PC inside of a comically large, clickable PC mouse shell which is about two or three times the size of a regular mouse.
There are some key compromises that come with cramming a working PC into such a small form factor. Despite Electo's goal of making "the best gaming mouse" by manner of technicality, the PC hardware onboard simply isn't adequate for gaming, with even basic titles like Minecraft struggling to reach 20 frames per. second. However, the limited hardware onboard did prove capable of gaming when streaming games from another PC, which still sort of counts.
That said, even the best case scenario for gaming on this PC built into a mouse— streaming the gameplay from another PC— can only last for so long before the streaming application or entire PC crashes. This definitely isn't a project suitable for daily driver or hardcore gaming use. However, it is kind of fascinating to see a screen attached to the mouse you use to control its cursor, if a bit disorienting in practice.
What matters most is that Electo seemed to have a decent amount of fun modding together the three project PCs, and for the most part, they all functioned as intended. As long as you have an actually-powerful PC sitting around, it turns out slapping a pocket PC and LCD onto a giant mouse actually can be yet another way to play your favorite games — not that we'd recommend it, of course.
