Today, the mouse is a necessary input device for all modern computers. But just recently everything was different. Computers did not have graphical commands and data could only be entered using the keyboard. And when the very first one appeared, you will be surprised to see what kind of evolution this familiar object has gone through.
Who invented the first computer mouse?
Considered the father of this device. He was one of those scientists who try to bring science closer even to ordinary people and make progress accessible to everyone. He invented the first computer mice in the early 1960s in his laboratory at Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International). The first prototype was created in 1964, and the patent application for this invention, filed in 1967, referred to it as an "XY Position Indicator for a Display System." But the official document number 3541541 was received only in 1970.
But is it really that simple?
It would seem that everyone knows who created the first computer mouse. But trackball technology was first used much earlier by the Canadian Navy. Back in 1952, the mouse was just a bowling ball attached to a complex hardware system that could sense the ball's movement and simulate its movements on the screen. But the world learned about it only years later - after all, it was a secret military invention that was never patented or attempted to be mass-produced. 11 years later it was already known, but D. Engelbart recognized it as ineffective. At that moment, he did not yet know how to connect his vision of the mouse and this device.
How did the idea come about?
The basic ideas for the invention first came to D. Engelbart's mind in 1961, when he was at a conference on computer graphics and pondered the problem of increasing the efficiency of interactive computing. It occurred to him that by using two small wheels that move on the tabletop (one wheel rotates horizontally, the other vertically), the computer can track the combination of their rotation and, accordingly, move the cursor on the display. To some extent, the principle of operation is similar to a planimeter - an instrument used by engineers and geographers to measure distances on a map or drawing, etc. The scientist then wrote down this idea in his notebook for future use.
Step into the Future
A little over a year later, D. Engelbart received a grant from the institute to launch his research initiative called "Enhancing the Human Mind." By this, he envisioned a system where knowledge workers, working on high-performance computer stations with interactive displays, had access to a vast online information space. With its help, they can collaborate to solve particularly important problems. But this system sorely lacked a modern input device. After all, in order to comfortably interact with objects on the screen, you need to be able to quickly select them. NASA became interested in the project and provided a grant for the construction of a computer mouse. The first version of this device is similar to the modern one except in size. At the same time, the team of researchers came up with other devices that made it possible to control the cursor by pressing a pedal with your feet or moving a special clamp under the table with your knee. These inventions never caught on, but the joystick, invented at the same time, was later improved and is still in use today.
In 1965, D. Engelbart's team published the final report of their research and various methods for selecting objects on the screen. There were even volunteers who participated in the testing. It went something like this: the program showed objects in different parts of the screen and volunteers tried to click on them with different devices as quickly as possible. According to test results, the first computer mice were clearly superior to all other devices and were included as standard equipment for further research.
What did the first computer mouse look like?
It was made of wood and was the first input device that fit into the user's hand. Knowing the principle of its operation, you should no longer be surprised by what the first computer mouse looked like. Under the body there were two metal disks-wheels, diagram. There was only one button, and the wire went under the wrist of the person holding the device. The prototype was assembled by one of the members of D. Engelbart’s team, his assistant William (Bill) English. Initially, he worked in another laboratory, but soon joined a project to create input devices, developed and implemented the design of a new device.
By tilting and rocking the mouse, you could draw perfectly straight vertical and horizontal lines.
In 1967 the body became plastic.
Where did the name come from?
No one remembers for sure who was the first to call this device a mouse. It was tested by 5-6 people, it is possible that one of them voiced the similarities. Moreover, the world's first computer mouse had a tail wire on the back.
Further improvements
Of course, the prototypes were far from ideal.
In 1968, at a computer conference in San Francisco, D. Engelbart presented the first improved computer mice. They had three buttons; in addition to them, the keyboard was equipped with a device for the left hand.
The idea was this: the right hand works with the mouse, selecting and activating objects. And the left one conveniently calls out the necessary commands using a small keyboard with five long keys, like a piano. Then it became clear that the wire under the operator’s hand was getting tangled when using the device, and that it needed to be routed to the opposite side. Of course, the left-handed console did not catch on, but Douglas Engelbart used it on his computers until his last days.
Continuing to improve
At further stages of mouse development, other scientists entered the scene. The most interesting thing is that D. Engelbart never received royalties from his invention. Since he patented it as a specialist from the Stanford Institute, it was the institute that controlled the rights to the device.
So, in 1972, Bill English replaced the wheels with a trackball, which made it possible to detect mouse movement in any direction. Since he was then working at Xerox PARC, this new product became part of the Xerox Alto system, which was advanced by those standards. It was a minicomputer with a graphical interface. Therefore, many people mistakenly believe that Xerox is the first.
The next round of development occurred with the mouse in 1983, when Apple entered the game. The enterprising person calculated the cost of mass production of the device, which amounted to approximately $300. This was too expensive for the average consumer, so the decision was made to simplify the design of the mouse and replace the three buttons with one. The price dropped to $15. And although this decision is still considered controversial, Apple is in no hurry to change its iconic design.
The first computer mice were rectangular or square in shape; the anatomical rounded design appeared only in 1991. It was introduced by Logitech. In addition to its interesting shape, the new product was wireless: communication with the computer was provided using radio waves.
The first optical mouse appeared in 1982. It needed a special mousepad with a printed grid to work. And although the ball in the trackball quickly became dirty and caused inconvenience because it had to be cleaned regularly, the optical mouse was not commercially viable until 1998.
What's next?
As you already know, “tailed” devices with a trackball are practically not used anymore. Technologies and ergonomics of computer mice are constantly improving. And even today, when devices with touchscreens are becoming more and more popular, their sales are not falling.
The first computer mouse was introduced on December 5, 1968 at a show of interactive devices in California. Although there are facts that developments and first results had happened earlier. In 1970, Douglas Engelbart received a patent for the production of a gadget familiar to us today. The first manipulator had three buttons, although initially the developer wanted to equip the device with five buttons - according to the number of fingers on the hand. At that time, a thick cord was used to connect to a computer, hence the name mouse.
The first mouse for controlling a PC was a wooden box with a cord sticking out of the case at the back. The principle of operation of the gadget was as simple as possible.
Inside the body there were two wheels perpendicular to each other. Thanks to the wheels, the manipulator moved along the X and Y axes. The built-in chip recorded the movements and the number of revolutions made. This data was transmitted to the processor, which processed the information and displayed a light spot on the screen - a cursor.
At the presentation, Douglas Engelbart and his assistant demonstrated to the public the operation of the first computer mouse, not only in normal mode, but also in the process of joint editing of one document.
Evolution of the computer manipulator
In the early seventies, the invention found widespread use. It was included with the Alto computer. The general principle of operation was retained, but the body became plastic, the cord was located on the front, and the buttons became more convenient. Soon the roller discs were replaced by a more convenient and less bulky ball. It is now possible to disassemble and clean the device.
The next step was to create an optical mouse that works using an optical sensor. This pointing device was included with the Macintosh.
The first wireless mouse appeared in 1991, it was introduced to the world by Logitech. However, this innovation was not recognized for a long time, since signal transmission via infrared waves was very slow, which significantly slowed down work on the computer.
Fast and comfortable laser mice became available in 2004. Nowadays, the most popular gadgets are radio communication devices. Today there are already gyroscopic mice that do not require a hard surface to control the cursor.
Facts about the inventor
It is curious that Douglas Engelbart did not sell his invention. His tasks did not include enrichment. The inventor received only $10,000 for his development, which he spent on buying a house for his family.
Subsequently, Douglas practically did not personally participate in improving the gadget. It so happened that he had to fight cancer and think more about his health than about new electronics.
Today, it is impossible to imagine a computer without this input device. The manipulator simplifies and speeds up editing texts and photos, provides comfort and convenience.
December 9 is considered the birthday of the computer mouse - it was on this day that almost 50 years ago, in 1968, at a conference on interactive devices in San Francisco, Douglas Engelbart introduced the computer mouse to the public. And all this time, such a manipulator was and remains the most widespread: even now, in times of widespread proliferation of touchpads, touch screens and voice assistants, the mouse is often an integral part of PCs and laptops. There are, in general, enough reasons for this: there is ease of use (you don’t need to remember all sorts of gestures with 3-4 fingers; the most difficult thing you need to know is double-click), and maximum accuracy (if you want, you can hit the desired pixel on the monitor - doing this on a touchpad, and even more so on a touch screen, is a fantasy). As a result, the mouse does not even think of dying - and although its tail has been lost over time, it, like the VGA with a 3.5 mm audio connector, will exist for a long time (although enough companies want to remove them from the market). But let's start from the very beginning - with the history of the creation of the first mouse.
The history of the computer mouse
In 1961, Engelbart, sitting at a conference on computer graphics (yes, graphics for supercomputers appeared decades earlier than for personal computers), began to think about how to conveniently control graphic elements on a monitor? Without graphics (for text output), the keyboard was enough for the eyes, but it’s not very convenient to control elements scattered across the entire screen (although, in principle, it’s possible even now - the same Windows 10 is quite tolerable, but very slow, controlled only from the keyboard). The idea that came to his mind was extremely simple: in essence, any display is a two-dimensional array of pixels, each of which has its own coordinate on two perpendicular axes (let's call them X and Y). You can have a cursor mark on the screen that allows you to work with an object located on the screen below it. But how to control the cursor? Yes, it’s very simple - we will make two disks, each of which will be responsible for movement along each of the axes. It is not difficult to take data from each disk (the value of Pi can be rounded, it is not particularly important here), and as a result, from two wheels and several sticks with a simple microprocessor, you can get a device that appears in the patent as “XY position indicator for a system with a display” . The patent application itself was filed in 1967, and the patent itself was received only in 1970.
Introduced in 1968, the mouse looked like this: 
It looked like something vaguely reminiscent of a modern mouse, although there were three buttons and it weighed like an iron. But in those days, such a device did not take root: firstly, so as not to hamper accuracy, the controller in the mouse had to calculate movements at least a dozen times per second - otherwise it was easy to miss the button (for comparison, modern mice have a frequency polling 125-1000 Hz, that is, 125-1000 times per second). But here the chip itself in the mouse was already giving up: let me remind you that this was the end of the 60s, and the frequencies of microprocessors were not even megahertz, but tens or hundreds of kilohertz. As a result, it was decided to use a trick: it is obvious that we need to receive data once every 100 ms about how far this or that wheel has been spun. In this case, the starting point of each movement is by default the ending point of the previous one. Then why load the controller with calculations like (end coordinate) - (start coordinate) if you can reset the start coordinate to zero each time? In this case, all we have to do is move the cursor on the screen by the number of pixels that corresponds to the coordinate of the end of the movement, and the mouse controller could calculate such data without any problems. Well, the very first coordinate after the system started was taken in the center of the screen - that is why even now, after loading the system, the mouse cursor is in the center of the display.
However, the main problem of the Engelbart mouse was not even this: the wheels could rotate strictly horizontally or vertically, so you could move across the display either vertically or horizontally - there were no diagonal movements. As a result, such a mouse, of course, made it possible to navigate elements on the display faster than a keyboard, but it was still far from comfortable operation.
Bill English was able to correct this annoying drawback, and only 2 years after Engelbart received the patent - in 1972. He, by the way, was Engelbart’s assistant, and suggested that he use a ball drive, which the military had been using since 1952: it was an ordinary bowling ball attached to a complex hardware system, and the rotation of the ball caused the cursor to shift on the screen. Of course, there were no problems with moving the cursor diagonally, but Engelbart recognized this method as ineffective.
As a result, English, annoyed by his boss’s decision, went to work at Xerox, where in 1972 he introduced a working mouse with a ball drive. Deciding that it was inconvenient to control the ball directly, he placed it inside the mouse, and two rollers recorded its rotation along both axes. To determine the angle of rotation of each roller, a contact encoder was initially used (as in the 1952 military scheme) - it was a disk with metal tracks applied to it at equal distances and three contacts pressed to it. When the roller rotated, the disk rotated, and the contact either disappeared or appeared - this made it possible to track in which direction and how much the roller rotated: 
The main problem - movement in only two axes - was solved, but a lot of others appeared. Firstly, the ball rolled on the table and quickly collected dirt and dust, which led to contamination and jamming of the rollers. Secondly, the contacts on the encoders quickly oxidized and wore out, which again worsened the accuracy. Well, the main problems were the cost and the fact that there were no graphical interfaces at that time, so the invention was used only within the company, and the first PC with a mouse went on sale only in 1981 (it was a Xerox 8010), and the mouse was there cost 400 dollars (more than 1000 dollars at the current exchange rate). Of course, at such a price the manipulator failed - people were used to working only with a keyboard and did not see the point in graphical interfaces, especially if they needed a manipulator with a price comparable to the cost of the entire PC.
However, Steve Jobs really liked this pointing device, and in 1983 Apple introduced a mouse for its Lisa computer. Knowing full well that even for $100 this product would fail, engineers at Apple did the truly impossible: the price was reduced to just $25! At the same time, alas, we had to sacrifice buttons - there was only one left (and by the way, this is still the case with Apple). The product turned out to be successful, and, coupled with the increasing prevalence of graphical interfaces, mice also began to develop and change - so let's talk about this.
Ball drive with optical encoder
So, the world community decided that a mouse was still needed. But English's mouse had quite a lot of problems, which I wrote about above. The fact that the ball became dirty was not a particular problem - it could be easily taken out, cleaned and taken away. But the fact that the contact encoder failed over time was a significant problem - after all, you couldn’t just replace it, it was the most basic element of the mouse. As a result, it was decided to use an optical encoder. Its essence is that now there were not contacts on the disk, but slots, and opposite them there were photodiodes. Accordingly, when rotating, the light either passed through the slot or did not pass through, which again made it possible to evaluate in which direction and how much the roller turned: 
Since there was no longer friction, the problem with abrasion and oxidation of contacts went away, and the mouse existed in this form at least until the beginning of the 2000s (and is still used in some places).
First generation optical mice
Many people think that optical mice are an invention of the 21st century. In fact, they are only 10 years older than English’s mouse - the first such mouse appeared in 1982, but was not particularly widespread: the problem was that its operation required a special mat with a mesh applied to it - it was from this that the light was reflected from diode and was received by the sensor on the mouse, but tracking movement along the grid was not difficult. The second problem was the high cost - many times higher than that of ball mice, which also worked with almost any surface. However, optical mice also had enough advantages: firstly, it is increased accuracy: if in the case of encoders there were many impulse transmissions (table - wheel - roller - encoder), which greatly reduced the accuracy and reduced the maximum speed of movement of the manipulator, and as a result If clicking on a cross or a link was not particularly difficult, then more precise (or faster) actions were difficult, but in the case of optical mice, the accuracy was already at the level of a couple of pixels, which made it more convenient to work with graphics. Well, besides, optical mice were still more reliable - there was no need to clean anything, and there was less chance of breakdown, since there were no mechanical elements.
Optical mice with matrix sensor
Here we come to the present: if you go to any electronics store, then in the cheap segment you will most likely find just such mice (they are distinguished from laser ones by the visible backlight of the sensor, but more on that below). How do these mice work? Yes, it’s very simple: the mouse has an ultra-fast video camera, capable of taking hundreds and thousands of pictures per second, and the microcontroller, comparing them, determines the direction and magnitude of the mouse’s displacement. To simplify the camera's operation, contrast lighting is used - usually red. The main advantage in comparison with the first generation of optical mice is that you don’t need a special mat; in theory, such a mouse works on any surface, even glass (although, of course, maximum accuracy is still achieved on mats).
Laser mouse
Well, the most modern and expensive are laser mice. Their principle of operation is similar to optical ones - they still have an ultra-fast video camera, but to illuminate the surface, it is no longer an LED, but a semiconductor laser, and the sensor is configured to capture only its wavelength: 
This allows you to achieve even greater accuracy - up to several thousand dpi. In general, such mice are not needed for ordinary users, but gamers appreciate them, because they allow you to “shoot the pixel.”
Induction mouse
Another type of mouse that can be called pseudo-wireless: they do not require a physical connection to a PC, and, unlike conventional wireless mice, do not require batteries - however, a special pad is required for their operation, and the mouse itself is powered by induction (inside The mouse has a coil, and under the influence of an alternating magnetic field from the mouse pad, an electric current appears on this coil). The advantages of such mice are obvious - you get a wireless mouse and no problems when the battery or batteries are discharged. On the other hand, you can only work on a mat, which is also not convenient for everyone.
Gyroscopic mice
In general, it’s clear here - in this case, the manipulator is quite far from ordinary mice, and has a gyroscope inside it, which allows the device to navigate in three-dimensional space. For working in a system where everything is flat, it is generally useless, but for 3D modeling or games it allows you to manipulate objects in space without using the keyboard.
Ergonomic mice
Somewhere since the 90s, mice have not changed much in appearance - they are small rectangular or oval bars with a thickening in the center, on the upper edge there are 1-2 buttons and a wheel - in general, I could not have written this, and so on know what mice look like. However, not so long ago mice began to appear that looked like anything, but not like a mouse - sort of pyramids with buttons on the side:
What is their meaning? The fact is that such a grip is more comfortable and familiar to the human hand, which can help some people avoid pain in the hand when using the mouse for a long time, and also increase accuracy. In reality, of course, everything is individual, but try it for everyone - it’s possible that you will like such an unconventional mouse.
Well, this, in general, is all about the history and design of computer mice: surprisingly, in 50 years humanity has not come up with anything more convenient and simple. It’s possible that everything will change in the future, but for now you can pet your tailed (or tailless) animal on the table and congratulate it on its 49th birthday.
Every rule has exceptions. You don't need to look far for an example. Take, for example, the relationship between humans and rodents. Those who have warm feelings for rats, marmots, porcupines and others like them are a minority. And vice versa: those who experience obvious hostility towards these animals are the overwhelming majority. Especially when we are talking about the fair half of humanity.
However, this state of affairs does not prevent a lot of people from communicating closely and even affectionately with one of these lovely creatures every day. Guess who I'm talking about?! Of course, oh computer mouse! Read on to learn about the history of the invention, appearance and nuances of development of this irreplaceable “rodent” today.
Founding Fathers
Work on a device that would be capable of converting hand movements into a corresponding signal on the monitor started in the middle of the last century. Moreover, these works had two characteristic features.
Firstly, they walked in different places parallel to each other.
Secondly, the military ordered the inventive “music”.
So, in 1946 Royal Navy of Great Britain represented by an engineer Ralph Benjamin presented the world's first prototype of a manipulator. It was created to replace the target control joystick on the radar screen. The device was called “roller ball” (from English - rotating ball). The patent was issued in 1947.
Things never went further than a single prototype (which consisted of a metal ball and two rubber-covered wheels). According to rumors, the secret development of the military disappeared in the bowels of the British fleet.
IN 1952 trio of inventors Kenyon Taylor, Tom Cranston And Fred Longstaff already under the auspices of the Royal Canadian Navy, for similar purposes as five years earlier, the British, as part of the DATAR project, developed their own manipulator. As in the case of the “roller ball,” the Canadian progenitor of the computer mouse never managed to gain commercial fame.
The most famous ancestor of the modern mouse was the work of employees of the Stanford Research Institute - Douglas Engelbart(pictured on the right) and his assistant Bill English.
In the 60s of the 20th century, in line with work on an ambitious project to increase the capabilities of human intelligence, these scientists created a number of experimental devices. Among them was a computer mouse.
The word “mouse” first came out of the lips of this duo. In 1965 Bill English, in his article “Computer-Aided Display Control,” announced for the first time in history the appearance of a new manipulator. The manipulator became a “mouse” due to the conditional similarity of the device to a real mouse: a computer mouse had its own “tail” - a connecting wire. A physical demonstration of the three-button manipulator took place in December 1968 at an exhibition of interactive devices in California.
For the creation of the device and the name for it, scientists from Stanford are considered to be the inventors of the computer mouse. It is curious, however, that they themselves did not receive any special material dividends from this. The patent for the invention expired before mice became widely used in personal computers. But in other scenarios, Stanford scientists could become multimillionaires.
Union of two: computer and mouse
Manufacturers of the first personal computers drew attention to the new mouse manipulator. Although not immediately, the mouse became part of the computer. The pioneers in this regard were the following machines:
- Xerox Alto(1973) - the “great-grandfather” of personal computers and the first PC to use a computer mouse.
- Lilith(1978) - a personal computer created at ETH Zurich by a group of enthusiasts led by Niklaus Wirth.
- Xerox 8010 Star Information System(1981) - the three-button mouse of this computer, famous in the past, was remembered primarily for its cost - 400 US dollars.
- Lisa(1983) - a computer product of the company, equipped with its own one-button mouse. The latter went to the masses a little later thanks to its use in Apple Macintosh and IBM PC computers. The price of the “apple” manipulator was $25.
- Atari ST(1985) - another American computer of the 80s, the operation of which required the presence of a mouse, this time with two buttons.
The company, which was showing great promise at that time, could not ignore the creation of a computer mouse. And even though Paul Allen’s brainchild did not create its own computers, in 1982 the now world-famous corporation presented its own computer mouse to the public. With this event, the company marked the beginning of the diversification of its business, moving from “software” to “hardware”.
Thus, starting from the late 80s - early 90s, the computer mouse seriously and for a long time entered the life of the average computer user. Then the mouse improved its shape and acquired capabilities.
From mechanics to ergonomics
The evolution of the computer mouse is truly multifaceted. The changes she had experienced in the past affected everything. First of all, we are talking about the principle of operation of the device.
The original direct drive (two perpendicular wheels), the author of which was the already mentioned Douglas Engelbart, was soon replaced by the ball mechanism of the mouse device (a rubber-coated metal ball sandwiched between two rollers). Until the end of the 90s, the ball mechanism became king. Then came the optical detector.
Optical computer mice of the first generation, which abandoned mechanics, worked using LEDs and infrared photodiodes. The latest generation of optical rodents use an optical sensor based on a semiconductor laser.
Having achieved high accuracy and reliability in the operation of an optical computer mouse, its creators could stop. But where is it going? The metamorphoses of the computer “rodent” continued.
Induction computer mice appeared. To operate such a manipulator, a special tablet mat is used. Without it, the mouse is incapable, but with it it is extremely accurate and does not require correct orientation on the surface.
In addition, gyroscopic mice are sold on the market today. These amazing devices, equipped with a gyroscope, are able to distinguish hand movements both on the surface and in space. You can control such a manipulator both on the table and in the air.
The advent of wireless mice led to the disappearance of the “name-giving” factor - the cable from the mouse to the computer. Such devices interact with a PC via optical or radio communication. True, wireless mice have two drawbacks - increased weight and the constant need to recharge the autonomous power source.
Often, upgrading a computer mouse concerns aspects unrelated to its design.
Industry has become such a “system-forming” aspect-driver for the development of a computer mouse. Avid gamers use mice that are specially designed for various types of games. Gaming adaptation mainly involves the presence of numerous auxiliary buttons on the mouse and the “fielder” design of the device.
Smart design is a key factor in creating ergonomic mice. As the name suggests, such manipulators are designed to provide comfort and convenience to the human hand. The developers of these “rodents” are convinced that their mice follow the natural contours of the hand, which means they will not cause serious neurological diseases. Such as carpal tunnel syndrome.
"War" of buttons
During the evolution of the computer mouse, changes also occurred with the button structure of the device. Initially, at the dawn of mass use of the “tailed” manipulator, the competition was fought between two- and three-button mice. It's funny, but in this “war” mice with two buttons won.
The end of the “combat operations” comes at a time when the traditional two-button mouse acquired the obligatory scroll - a small screen scroll wheel. This event meant that the long-awaited victory was won by the eternal competitor - the three-button “rodent”. After all, scrolling is actually the third mouse button.
After this, the creative fervor of computer mouse developers could no longer be appeased. New buttons rained down as if from a cornucopia. There are buttons for:
- ~ double click replacement;
- ~ horizontal scrolling;
- ~ navigation in ;
- ~ management of audio and video files;
- ~ sensitivity settings;
- ~ launching one or another;
- ~ and much more.
The company of the now legendary Steve Jobs took its own path to developing the button structure of its mice.
EPP has been creating one-button computer mice for a long time, considering the second, third, etc. buttons an unnecessary whim. This was the case until 2005, when the IT giant introduced Mighty Mouse (from English - powerful mouse). This computer mouse had two features.
Firstly, the “mighty mouse” turned out to be smooth as an egg.
Secondly, the buttons on this mouse turned out to be touch sensitive. The Apple team has endowed the computer “rodent” with four touch-sensitive zones. Which replaced her mechanical buttons.
About the future of the computer mouse
What does the future hold for the computer mouse? No one can know for sure. But I have no doubt that it will remain an indispensable attribute of human-computer interaction over the next decades. Another question is in what form: sensory, virtual or biomechanical. Time will give the answer, and if necessary, I will certainly tell you about it!
With a share to you, great health and wealth.
The invention was first shown on December 9, 1968 at the presentation of Engelbart's report on computer networks in San Francisco.
Who invented
A team of engineers led by Doug Engelbart at Stanford Research Institute developed a computer controller with two wheels at the bottom, and one of the researchers nicknamed it "the mouse."
Recalls Engelbart: “We thought that when the controller became widespread, it would have a more worthy name.” But that didn't happen.
Engelbart began making the first sketches of a mouse in 1961, deciding that he could make something better than the then standard "light pen" that had been used in radar systems during World War II.
“We had several gadgets, but they were all terribly inconvenient - bulky and heavy, like a cannonball. We needed a controller that could be held with one hand and control the computer.”
What did the first mouse look like?
One of Engelbart's collaborators, Bill English, created a device based on "x-y" positioning. Simply put, these were two wheels located perpendicular to each other. In addition to wheels and a wooden body, the device had a button and a long cord with a plug at the end.
“We started testing and the mouse won in every category, even though it had never been used before,” Engelbart recalls. – The work was done faster, people made fewer mistakes. Five or six of us took part in these tests, but no one can remember who started calling this device a mouse. I’m surprised the name stuck.”
What was it made of?
It grew from a small wooden box to become an important piece of computer equipment. But even though the computer mouse is turning 40 years old, there are signs that it may end up on the electronic scrapheap as successful experiments are being conducted on how to operate a computer without it.
Read also about the first in the world, about and about.
