Influential computer mouse celebrates 40th anniversary

by Stevie Smith - Dec 8 2008, 13:00

Notebook touchpads offer a somewhat fiddly alternative for on-the-go computer users, and touchscreen devices and gesture-based accelerometers might yet spread to be the interaction methods of the future. However, until then, the trusty computer mouse is still the world’s favoured user-to-hardware communication system as it celebrates 40 years at the technology forefront.

Initially, arriving as a simple wooden block with wheels and a protruding chord, the very first mouse was unveiled on December 09 of 1968, when Dr. Douglas Engelbart showcased the new technology during a forward-looking demonstration of interactive computing at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco, California.

During that momentous demo, Dr. Engelbart of Stanford Research International’s Augmentation Research Center used a rudimentary wooden concept design to show attendees how the technology could be used to manually direct an on-screen cursor.

The term “mouse” was subsequently coined by Dr. Engelbart and his team after they decided the chord emanating from the device’s rear looked much like a tail.

Recounting events to UK broadsheet The Times, mouse concept design engineer Bill English (79), said the development team knew it had created something substantial when stunned and silent conference attendees suddenly leapt to their feet in rapturous applause as the demo concluded.

“That was when we knew that we had achieved something special,” said Mr. English, who now resides in Marin County, California.

According to Mr. English, the creation of “an x-y positioning device” came about after Dr. Engelbart launched an effort to improve light pen technology used through radar systems during the early 1960s.

“The mouse is intuitive to use,” explained Mr. English. “It is easier to grasp, much easier than a pen, and it conveys what you want on the screen with great accuracy.”

Despite the initial success of the conference demonstration, it took until 1981 to see Xerox release the very first commercial trackball mouse, which it developed with contributing input from Mr. English during the 1970s.

Market exposure for mouse technology shifted up a gear when Apple purchased the mouse patent for its Macintosh computers in 1984, and then the interaction method went truly global when Microsoft Corporation embraced it to work alongside its newly created Windows operating system.

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