The Mouse Turns 40

Smivs writes with an excerpt from the BBC marking the anniversary of what may be the most famous tech demo outside Trinity site: "The humble computer mouse celebrates its 40th anniversary today. On 9 December 1968 hi-tech visionary Douglas Engelbart first used one to demonstrate novel ways of working with computers. The first mouse that Dr Engelbart used in the demo at the Fall Joint Computer Conference (FJCC) was made of wood and had one button. Much of the technology shown off in the demo inspired the creation of the hardware and software now widely used. ... The mouse, which was built by Bill English, helped Dr Engelbart demonstrate how text files could be clipped, copied and pasted as well as showing ways of using computer networks to collaborate on projects or co-edit documents." According to the article, "A day of celebration is planned in California to mark the 40th anniversary; with many of the researchers behind the original demo reunited to mark the event."

Comments

Re:Obligatory review comment

[theaveng]

P.S. I remember when I first used a PC, I kept wondering why I needed a second button. Back then (Win 3.1) the right mouse button was rarely used. The left button would be well-worn while the right button still looked new. It took a couple years for Microsoft to invent the idea of right-button context menus. (Or maybe that should be stole? The Commodore Amiga had been using right button menus since 1986.)