Fascinating
facts about the invention of the
Computer Mouse by Douglas Engelbart in 1968. |
COMPUTER
MOUSE |
|
 |
Years before personal computers and
desktop information processing became commonplace or even practicable, Douglas Engelbart
had invented a number of interactive, user-friendly information access systems that we
take for granted today: the computer mouse was one of his inventions. At the Fall Joint
Computer Conference in San Francisco in 1968, Engelbart astonished his colleagues by
demonstrating the aforementioned systems---using an utterly primitive 192 kilobyte
mainframe computer located 25 miles away! Engelbart has earned nearly two dozen patents,
the most memorable being perhaps for his "X-Y Position Indicator for a Display
System": the prototype of the computer "mouse" whose convenience has
revolutionized personal computing. |
| Mouse
(computer), a common pointing device, popularized by its inclusion as standard equipment
with the Apple Macintosh. With the rise in popularity of graphical user interfaces in
MS-DOS; UNIX, and OS/2, use of mice is growing throughout the personal computer and
workstation worlds. The basic features of a mouse are a casing with a flat bottom,
designed to be gripped by one hand; one or more buttons on the top; a multidirectional
detection device (usually a ball) on the bottom; and a cable connecting the mouse to the
computer. By moving the mouse on a surface (such as a desk), the user typically controls
an on-screen cursor. A mouse is a relative pointing device because there are no defined
limits to the mouse's movement and because its placement on a surface does not map
directly to a specific screen location. To select items or choose commands on the screen,
the user presses one of the mouse's buttons, producing a "mouse click." Mouse Patent # 3,541,541 issued 11/17/70 for X-Y Position Indicator
For A Display System
Douglas Engelbart's patent for the mouse is only a representation of his pioneering work
in the design of modern interactive computer environments. |
TO LEARN MORE
RELATED INfFORMATION:
Douglas
Engelbart, Inventor Profile from
The Great Idea Finder
History of Computing
from The Great
Idea Finder
ON THE BOOKSHELF:
Bootstrapping:
Douglas Engelbart, Coevolution, and the Origins of Personal Computing
by Thierry Bardini / Paperback: 284 pages / Stanford Univ Press (December 2000)
When Douglas Engelbart first demonstrated small-w windows and a funny wooden device called
a mouse back in 1968, interest jumped quickly and he became the progenitor of the PC.
From
Memex to Hypertext : Vannevar Bush and the Mind's Machine
by James M. Nyce (Editor), Paul Kahn, Vannevar Bush / Hardcover - 367 pages / Academic Pr
-1992
Memex, a computer that was never built, was described in 1945 by pioneer computer engineer
Bush, and foreshadowed the principles and operations of today's personal computers.
Vannevar Bush's article "As We May Think" inspired the thinking of Mr. Engelbart
and many others.
Endless Frontier : Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century
by G. Pascal Zachary / Paperback - 518 pages / MIT Press - 1999
Profiling Vannevar Bush, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineer who, as head
of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), oversaw all wartime military
research. He mobilized the nation's scientific and technological talent by funding private
research with public.
ON THE WEB:
National Inventors Hall of
Fame
Douglas Engelbart Inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1998.
(URL: www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/53.html)
Invention
Dimension - Inventor of the Week
Douglas Engelbart featured January, 1997 for his invention of the computer mouse.
(URL: web.mit.edu/invent/iow/engelbart.html)
MouseSite
A resource for exploring the history of human computer interaction beginning with
the pioneering work of Douglas Engelbart and his colleagues at Stanford Research Institute
in the 1960s.
(URL: sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite)
Interview
with Douglas Engelbart
Transcript of a video history interview with Mr. Doug Engelbart, winner of the
Computerworld Smithsonian Award in 1994. Presented by the National Museum of American
History, Smithsonian Institution
(URL: americanhistory.si.edu/csr/comphist/englebar.htm)
Bootstrap Institute
Find out what Mr. Engelbart is inventing today at the institute he founded.
(URL: www2.bootstrap.org)
|
| Reference
Sources in BOLD Type |
This
page revised February, 2005. |
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