Invention of Mouse the Computer

Invention of Mouse

The computer mouse has become an input device almost as important as the keyboard. Transforming the interface between user and machine, the computer mouse helps users manipulate the pointer or cursor in applications ranging from word processors to photo editors. Because of its incredible versatility and convenience vs. only using a keyboard, the mouse and its buttons has increased the accessibility, versatility, and convenience of computing. The twentieth century was therefore changed as a result of the invention, which made personal computing commonplace and ubiquitous.

Before the invention of the mouse, computer input devices designed specifically to enhance cursor functionality had not yet become standardized or universal. A various range of input instruments such as digital tablets and joysticks competed for position as the input device of choice for computer users. The mouse was one of them, and was technically born in the 1960s when Douglas Englebart and Bill English began collaborating on a series of trackball-related devices for input at the Stanford Research Institute. Around 1972, the first recognizable rollerball mouse was born (jimmythejock). In subsequent years, the design and functionality of the mouse changed but was still based on the same basic principles championed by Englebart and the researchers at Stanford. The Xerox corporation is credited with coupling the first commercially-available mouse with its computers in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The mouse dramatically changed society in the twentieth century by making personal computing and business computing easier and more accessible. As a primary input device, the mouse allowed users to have a greater degree of control over their personal computing experience compared with all other attempts to provide a similar device. The invention of the mouse in the 1970s was succeeded by a wave of improvements to the device that truly transformed personal computing and helped bring computers into the mainstream. The Apple Corporation made such dramatic design improvements to the computer mouse that Pang (2002) describes the change as follows: "Apple's mouse actually was to its predecessors what the DC-3 was to the Wright brothers' Flyer: not the first of its kind, but the breakthrough in technology and design that made possible a breakthrough in commercialization."

The basic mouse is "a hand held device which generates digital pulses in response to ball or laser beam movement and buttons or wheels," (oldmouse.com). Although basic trackball mice are still commercially available, they have been largely overshadowed by newer versions of the computer mouse based on optical and laser technologies. All computer mice allow the user to control the position of a cursor on the screen (or alternatively, a player position in a game) as the trackball, optical or laser sensors detect user movements and translate those into digital input. The mouse devices installed on the latest versions of laptop computers work differently from trackball and optical mice that are external to the computer but the underlying input principles are the same for laptop track pads and click buttons as they are for external mice. External mice may be wireless as well as wired, allowing users increased ergonomic flexibility.