Engelbart’s Daydream

The normalcy of the computer mouse as an everyday object  and household name perhaps prevents people from wondering at the history of its invention [1]. This page aims to explore how Doug Engelbart, the inventor of the computer mouse, conceptualized and executed its invention. (See People of the Mouse for more specific information on http://historyoftech.mcclurken.org/mouse/people/the-people-of-the-mouse/).

The idea for the computer mouse first came to Doug Engelbart in 1961 as he was attending a conference on computer graphics [2].  he based the idea on the principle that a piece of equipment being used to measure the area of a two-dimensional chart, and he sketched the idea in his notebook [3]. His brainstorming revolved around the “improvement of interactive computing,” and this was where the idea for the mouse was born [4]. The basic idea for the computer mouse was such: it would be a device that would have a pair of small wheels, one that would turn horizontally on a tabletop and one  that would turn vertically [5]. Scientifically speaking, moving the wheels around a surface would plot the x and y coordinates for a cursor on the computer screen [6].

“Drawing from Engelbart’s Patent”. Digital Image. MouseSite. Accessed March 16, 2017.http://web.stanford.edu/dept/SUL/library/extra4/sloan/MouseSite/Archive/patent/Mouse.html

Engelbart received a grant at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) to research under an initiative entitled “Augmenting Human Intellect”. This original grant was, “from NASA in 1963 to experiment with “light pens, tracking balls, and other kinds of gadgets” [7]. In one of these experiments, Engelbart described his experiment as, “the computer would keep track of the time it took to respond, and the accuracy and all that information” [8].

During this experimental period, he realized that a number of different devices were being used to select objects on screen, and thought it would be interesting and valuable to test which device worked the best” [9]. Engelbart discovered that he could use a much smaller, simpler device could achieve the same result by using two fixed wheels at right angles of each other [10]. This showcase of both Engelbart’s and his team’s fantastic technological achievement would spark an improvement in efficiency regarding computer screen movement.

Click on the next tab, “Augmenting Human Intellect” to learn the next step in Engelbart’s journey in inventing the mouse.

Footnotes:

1. Atkinson, Paul. “The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men: The Computer Mouse in the History of Computing.” Design Issues 23, no. 3 (Summer 2007): 46. http://ezproxy.umw.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=25930966&site=ehost-live 
2. Living History: The Doug Engelbart Archive. Doug Engelbart Institute. Accessed February 20, 2017. http://www.dougengelbart.org/library/engelbart-archives.html
3. Atkinson, Paul. “The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men: The Computer Mouse in the History of Computing.” Design Issues 23, no. 3 (Summer 2007): 49-61. http://ezproxy.umw.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=25930966&site=ehost-live 
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Edwards, Benji. “The Computer Mouse Turns 40.” Macworld, December 9, 2008. Accessed February 20, 2017. http://www.macworld.com/article/1137400/input-devices/mouse 40.html
7. Atkinson, Paul. “The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men: The Computer Mouse in the History of Computing.” Design Issues 23, no. 3 (Summer 2007): 46. http://ezproxy.umw.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=25930966&site=ehost-live 
8. Ibid, 47
9. Ibid, 48
10. Ibid.