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Stanford Mouse Video Archive

Posted by chrisd on from the fun-with-a-soldering-iron dept.

serutan writes "Stanford University has a retro-cool series of video clips of a 1968 presentation that foreshadowed the Internet and marked the public debut of the mouse. It is a surreal, weirdly captivating piece of computer history." Part of the site includes a solicitation for those who have memories and stories about the old days of computing, when programs were measured in inches and people felt they were lucky, lucky I tell you, to have ones and zeros.

5 of 140 comments (clear)

  1. We saw this recently - its got a hyperlink demo by iainl · · Score: 4, Informative

    The page linked is, of course, the one from BT's hyperlink patent story we discussed recently. One of the videos on the site demonstrates the use of that very thing.

    --
    "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
  2. Mouse is on display at The Tech by ascii · · Score: 4, Informative

    I do believe the original prototype is still on display at The Tech Museum of Innovation, San Jose, CA.

    It's encased in a transparent plastic box and you can actually pick it up and study it at close. I was lucky enough to get a couple of snapshots of it.

    Get a glimpse here.

    --
    naah sig schmig
  3. Re:So Xerox stole thier ideas from these guys??? by Dun+Malg · · Score: 2, Informative

    Who did Stanford's Augmentation Research Center rip off?
    If you were paying attention, you would know that these guys invented the mouse pointing device. Xerox PARC came up with the ball-driven mouse and was the first place the mouse really moved from a mere crufted-together tech-demo to a seriously usuable tool.

    --
    If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
  4. First mouse, but not first pointing device by Animats · · Score: 4, Informative
    The first pointing device for computer input was the "light gun" developed for the SAGE air defense system, in the 1950s. The trackball and the RAND tablet both predated the mouse.

    Predating all of these was the sliding crank used as a target designator in the Nike missile system. This was a 2 degree of freedom crank; you could turn the crank, or slide the handle radially. This device is not well known, but can be seen at the restored launch site in Marin County, CA. The guidance computer for the Nike was an analog system, not a digital computer, though.

    1. Re:First mouse, but not first pointing device by Animats · · Score: 4, Informative

      Here's a picture of the Nike Battery Commander's Console, showing the sliding crank device. Note the two radarscopes set into the desk, and the crank to the lower right of each. That was how the battery commander selected the target to be shot down.