IDEA No 6
THE MOUSE
Despite the rapid development of computer technology over the last 50 years, the design of the computer mouse has remained more or less unchanged. Even with the advent of touchscreen technology, this classic product looks set to retain its position as the input device of choice for some time yet.
The first computer mouse, held by its inventor, Douglas Engelbart (1963).
The precursor of the mouse – the trackball – was invented by the Canadian Navy in 1952. It consisted of a five-pin bowling ball mounted in a bracket that tracked which way the ball was turned. The mouse also has a naval connection. While working as a radar operator in the Philippines at the end of World War II, Douglas Engelbart began to explore how screen-based technology could help solve complex problems. He envisioned people sitting in front of displays, using computers to formulate and organize their ideas efficiently.
After the war, as Director of the Augmentation Research Center (ARC) at Stanford Research Institute, Engelbart led a team that designed and developed the oNLine System (NLS), a human–computer interface that incorporated hypertext, the graphical user interface (GUI) and the first computer mouse.
Developed in 1963 by Engelbart and Bill English, the mouse was the device that made hypertext feasible. Without it, there would be no hyperlink, and without the hyperlink there would be no Web. For a joke, Engelbart and English nicknamed this world-changing device the ‘mouse’, as the lead attached to the rear of the device looked like a tail. The name stuck. Several other pointing devices were developed by Engelbart’s team, including light pens, joysticks and head-mounted devices, but ultimately the mouse proved the most effective. The GUI and the mouse were publically demonstrated at the 1968 Joint Computer Conference (see Graphical User Interface).
In 1968, the German company Telefunken took the best elements of the trackball and Engelbart’s mouse, and created the roller-ball mouse, or Rollkugel. The design is so successful that, despite advances in technology, a roller-ball mouse can still be bought today.
Bill English went on to work for Xerox PARC, and the mouse became the key component of the revolutionary Xerox Alto computer system and its 1981 follow-up, the Xerox Star. The Xerox Star’s mouse was the first to be available on the commercial market, although at $75,000 for a basic system, take-up was low. It was not until 1983, when Apple released the Apple Lisa for a more accessible $10,000, that the mouse was recognized as an essential part of home computing.■
‘Without the mouse, there would be no hyperlink, and without the hyperlink there would be no Web.’
The precursor of the mouse, the trackball (1952), was developed by the Canadian Navy and used a standard Canadian five-pin bowling ball.