Difference between revisions of "Mouse"

From Computer History Wiki
Jump to: navigation, search
(A good start)
(No difference)

Revision as of 04:06, 19 June 2018

The mouse is an input pointing device; the successor to the light pen, and pre-decessor to the touch-pad. In addition to the abilty to point, almost all mice have had one of more buttons, to allow the user to signal the computer when some operation is desired.

With the modern GUI user interface, pointing is a key input mode, and the invention of a practical mouse made it viable.

Modern mice often also include a 'scroll wheel', to allow the user to control what is displayed on the screen (the exact effect of rolling the scroll wheel depends on the application).

History

The first mice were invented by Douglas Engelbart of the Augmentation Research Center at the Stanford Research Institute. They had two large wheels, with horizontal axes of rotation, with the axes at right angles to each other.

They worked, but were not very satisfactory; when the Xerox Alto project at Xerox PARC decided they wanted to use a mouse for a pointing device, Bill English (who had worked with Engelbart) came up with a design which used a ball to pick up motion, but it was still complex and expensive.

When Apple decided to add a mouse to the Apple Lisa, they called in a team at Hovey-Kelley Design, led by Dean Hovey, who produced the modern mouse: the ball is not supported by the mouse, simply rolls on the surface, and sensing shafts turn slotted wheels which are monitored by optical sensors.

This design still had issues (it tended to pick up dirt), so eventually optical mice appeared, which sensed movement directly by reflecting light off the surface they were being moved over.

External links