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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."
We're rejoicing over an input device?
No keyboard monument? Or was it overshadowed by the typewriter?
I'm a satanic clam.
The Governor of Illinois has been arrested on charges of selling a senatorship to the highest bidder and we're celebrating the birthday of a fucking mouse?
The mouse was seen at the local Maserati dealership evaluating cars with his 20-something year old girlfriend.
So? 40 means that it's old and obsolete. That ties in perfectly with the fact that I switched my main computer to a laptop with a trackpad.
I do not have a sig. You are hallucinating.
One button. You have to take your hand off the keyboard. Lame.
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What was amazing wasn't just that he unveiled the mouse, but pretty much launched the concept of personal computing as we know it today, including many of the metaphors we take for granted in the modern graphical OS, as well as video communications, email, hypertext... amazing scenes.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
So what will be the next big input device? Or are we stuck with mouse and keyboard?
Aw, and it doesn't look a day over 30.
Except it lost its ball. Pretty sad to lose a ball while you're in your prime.
Developers: We can use your help.
Dude, this is Slashdot. We don't use freakin mice around here. Keyboards are always faster
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And lets be clear. The plural of computer mouse is most definitely not 'computer mouses'.
What? They have copied the "one button mouse" idea from Apple!! Damn Copycats!! Thats why Apple needed to invent the Mighty Mouse so there would not be so many copies!
As a tool, computers with the mouse, particularly the WIMP interface, really revolutionized the game. For some things, like repetitive data entry into vertical business apps, I believe the mouse has not contributed to simplicity. It has allowed a user to perform more tasks in such apps, but that complications has been a mixed blessing. And the over complicated mouse, with 20 buttons, and 3D motions, make me craze the old days of the command line, particalarly an intelligent command line like DEC had.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
The mouse made its debut at a presentation in San Francisco in 1968 to show off a working network computer system. Before the invention of the mouse, people working on computers used a light pen, similar to those wielded by radar operators during the war, to navigate around on screen. The research team at the Institute set about finding an alternative, and went through a range of designs before finally settling on the mouse.
"We set up our experiments and the mouse won in every category, even though it had never been used before," said openly gay Rob Malda. "It was faster, and with it people made fewer mistakes. Five or six of us were involved in these tests, including ESR cumming in my ass, but no one can remember who started calling it a mouse. I'm surprised the name stuck."
The mouse was developed by Xerox during the 1970s, and the first commercial product was released in 1981 with the launch of the Xerox Star computer system. But it wasn't until Apple acquired the license for the mouse for $40,000 from the Standford Institute that the technology really took off. The Apple Macintosh, launched in 1984, used the mouse to good effect, and is the machine widely credited with kick-starting the home computer revolution. The mouse became the default input method on most computers for the next two decades.
However, it faces stiff-cock competition from new technology such as gesture control and touch-screen interfaces. Apple's iPhone mobile phone has shown people the power and potential of touch-screens, and the Nintendo Wii demonstrates the simplicity of natural gestures. Companies such as HP have already started building computers that rely on touch-sensitive monitors rather than a mouse, and Microsoft, too, is experimenting with new user interfaces. Its Surface computer is a touch-screen tablet which responds to natural hand gestures, touch and physical objects.
"I very much doubt we'll be using a mouse in 40 years' time," Michael Simms, an analyst at Gartner Research, told the Observer over a frosty mug of chilled rabbit semen.
Malda, the uber-fag, did not make a fortune from his creation, Slashdot,however. The patent he had on the device ran out shortly before Apple launched it to a wider audience, meaning he received no royalties for his invention. However, in 1998 he finally received recognition for his innovative design when the then president, Bill Clinton, awarded him the National Medal of Technology for creating the foundations of modern computing.
40 years old and Apple STILL can't make a decent mouse.
Remember the hockey puck one? What a god awful piece of crap that was.
Jobs'd
This was invented by Shampoo.
(what's happening. How do I get out of this)
This story: How to clean your mouse This memo is from an unnamed computer company. It went to all field engineers about a computer peripheral problem. The author of this memo was quite serious. The engineers rolled on the floor. "Mouse balls are now available as FRU (Field Replacement Unit). Therefore, if a mouse fails to operate or should it perform erratically, it may need a ball replacement. Because of the delicate nature of this procedure, properly trained personnel should only attempt replacement of mouse balls. Before proceeding, determine the type of mouse balls by examining the underside of the mouse. Domestic balls will be larger and harder than foreign balls. Ball removal procedures differ depending upon the manufacturer of the mouse. Foreign balls can be replaced using the pop-off method. Domestic balls are replaced by using the twist-off method. Mouse balls are not usually static sensitive. However, excessive handling can result in sudden discharge. Upon completion of ball replacement, the mouse may be used immediately. It is recommended that each replacer have a pair of spare balls for maintaining optimum customer satisfaction. Any customer missing his balls should suspect local personnel of removing these necessary items."
But how old is Donald Duck and Goofy? ;)
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
... cleaning mouse balls jokes turn 39.
I had a good laugh at the photo caption: "The basic workings of a mouse have changed little in 40 years".
The way I remember it, the mouse progressed from two perpendicular wheels on the bottom, to a ball that drove two internal wheels with an optical encoder. to optical mice using a reflective pad. to optical mice using surface image capture. And that's not to mention the mouse-like devices in between (trackpoint, touch pads, trackballs...) and permutations of mouse features (wireless, multiple buttons, scroll wheels). Saying that the mouse has changed little is like saying that TVs have changed little in 40 years.
Computer screens as we know them, did not start becoming generally available until the mid 1970s. The breakthrough was an inexpensive memory chip large enough to hold 5 by 7 patterns of ascii characters 5 x 7 x 40 (1400 bits) and 80 x 48 screenfull of characters (19K at 6 bits per character). A bit of memory cost about $1 until Intel introduced the first kilobyte chips in 1970 (two years after Englebert's demo) dropping the bit price to pennies in mid 1970s. Then it became practical to sell character computer terminals. Before then computer users used punchcards, punchtapes, teletypes, and line printers.
These were character screens however. Graphics screens took another 10-15 to become personal. The first generation were programmable oscilloscopes, i.e. vector drawing machines. They had their special graphics languages, e.g. GKS, that emulated pen plotters. Limited bit map grapics came in the meantime. Steve Wozniak is famous for one baroque scheme of graphics in the Apple II. It wasnt pure bitmap as we know today. Xerox PARC sold the first B&W bitmaps at $30K a pop ($120K in 2008$). Then about 1980s the first general purpose color raster screen computers came out. At $30K a terminal these were shared in a lab. That was because a megabyte still cost $10K. Finally as memory prices dropped "workstation"-class computers came out around 1985 giving each scientist their personal graphics screen. This was SUN Microsystems original product.
In 2008 I bought a $7 cellphone with 64K pixel color graphics screen.
"Computer, Computer?" "Hello Computer" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19BWJQ8kjrw
The original presentation was called "A research center for augmenting human intellect" but the end result of his research is myspace.com.
It appears that he is still alive today - perhaps somebody should ask him what he feels about causing this much pain, suffering, and scourge to be released on mankind?
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
He's getting rather old but he's a good mouse.
Squirrel!
Does anyone else dislike when the pressure spots on the side of the mouse are buttons? Maybe I'm just old, but thats how I move the mouse around (pinch between thumb and ring finger - use index and middle for left and right) ... and I always end up getting extraneous clicks when the sides are buttons. I'd turn this off on my own PC, but its when I use a customer's PC on site. erg.
meh
.... seriously why use the mouse? Ratpoison offers the user a GUI without being slowed down by reaching for the mouse.
Does anyone know where a free (let's make clear: not realmedia 2 or whatever) online copy of the Big Demo may be found?
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a mouse. There is no evidence that people want to use these things. - John C. Dvorak
SMS is hardly encouraging spelling the way things are said, its encouraging a shorthand form of speech with its own conventions and fashions that will differ from area to area, if not person to person. Its encouraging people to create their own spellings in a sea of pure anarchy.
English spelling may be completely inconsistent, and I am sure its really a bitch to learn English as a second language in the written form (although I bet spoken English isn't as bad overall as some languages with much more rigid rules on declensions etc), but the SMS users who are creating their own spellings are more properly playing with spellings. Its really more akin to the spelling of English prior to the first dictionaries when a writer might spell the same word several different ways inside of the same document and there were *no* official correct spellings.
The problem with non-standardized spellings based on an individual's pronunciation of an English word is the wide variety of English dialects spoken all over the world, and for that matter the large number of speakers who have it as a second language, and whose pronunciation is of course coloured by their native language and subsequent accent when speaking English. What you decide to use as an SMS abbreviation of a word when you come from Manchester England for instance, might make zero sense to me when I am from Western Canada, or to a third person living in Mumbai.
Now, the current standardized spellings for English (which can be divided into 1)the US spelling, and 2) the rest of the world's spelling), are really horrid and I am sure they are a major barrier to learning English for million of people in the rest of the world, but at least they are more or less conventions which are consistent. Any spelling reform almost has to come as an initiative based on the universal adoption of a particular dialect of English.
Although I live in Canada, speak and write the Queen's English (and thus spell the US word "color" as "colour" etc), my candidate for the eventually dominant form of English is the English language as defined by the speakers of Seattle - why? Because Microsoft Word's spell checker is using US English and I expect that to dominate eventually (yes, you can switch to other versions of English which presumably switches the spell checker as well, but the default is US English). Plus of course, US Culture is currently bombarding the rest of the world like it or not.
If the US decided to radically reform the official spelling of English and taught the new spelling in schools, its possible the rest of the world would eventually adopt it. The problem is course that all old documents would then be rendered unreadable by the next generation. I doubt that is likely to happen, so I think we are stuck with the current horrid orthography for the foreseeable future :P
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
I hope they serve cheese at the celebration....
WOW, you mean that despite all their claims neither Microsoft nor Apple invented the mouse?
... sort of ... : http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=98/12/09/139241
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
The mouse was invented in 1964, NOT 1968 http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101041011/nextessay.html
Of course not. It was Al Gore.
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
On a side note: THE Mouse turns 80 (Mickey Mouse, that is). The title of the article doesn't specify which mouse... :-p
Macfags take note: Apple did NOT invent the mouse.
The Commodore Amiga had been using right button menus since 1986.
The right mouse button brought up menus on the Alto at Xerox PARC.
"... was made of wood and had one button..."
isn't that what apple's still use? ;-)
Or have they finally decided to move to the 'new' bronze-age mice ... made of bronze?
Heaven forbid they admit anything-PC is right and move to a plastic mouse, or more buttons, wheels, etc...
ok, apple fan-boys, whack away now. I'll be here busily ignoring you...