The computer mouse was invent back in the early 1960s. Douglas Engelbart and his colleague (and subordinate) William “Bill” English are still fighting for the unofficial title of creating the new gadget.
The prototype of a mouse
The first computer mouse
Some researchers believe that it was English who assembl the world’s first computer mouse. And Engelbart, like a true cunning boss, only present a wooden box with a button on top and two perpendicular metal wheels at a conference in 1968. Two years later, he fil a lifetime patent for “XY position indicator for a display system.”
Patent for the first computer mouse
Patent for a computer mouse
The document brought Douglas Engelbart real fame and some income. Bill English later said that Xerox paid Doug $50,000 for the license. At the same time, English came up with the design of the new mouse for Xerox: inside the gadget there was a ball and two rollers. To determine the angle of rotation for each roller, a contact encoder (a disk with metal tracks appli to it, as well as three contacts press against it) was first us.
English, reinventing the mouse, solv some of the problems (previously the gadget could only move along the X and Y axes). But the design propos by the inventor was not perfect either:
the ball flew across the table and collect dirt, causing the rollers to jam;
The contacts on the encoders oxidiz and wore out, which ruc accuracy.
New life for old technologies
It would seem that after such a failure the mouse would leave IT technologies forever, but this did not happen. The accessory was reviv by Steve Jobs, who bought all the developments .
The IT genius knew what he want and told his designers straight out : “[We ne to] design a mouse that costs no more than $15 to produce. It should last at least a few years. Oh, and I’d like to use it by moving it down the leg of my jeans.
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No sooner said than done! First, Apple introduc a one-button mouse for the Lisa personal computer. The gadget cost only $25. And in 1984, the Apple guys present another breakthrough innovation — the Macintosh 128k with a graphical interface. The new computer, call a “toaster” by customers, was controll by the M0100 mouse. It was affordable for people with an average income.
That same Macintosh 128k presentation
The technological breakthrough did not go unnotic. Microsoft (Apple’s main competitor) releas its two-button mice for Microsoft Word almost simultaneously with Apple. Over the next decade, competition between the technology giants continu:
In 1989, at the ACM SIGCHI conference, Gina Danielle Venolia of Apple present a prototype mouse with a horizontal wheel that was us for scrolling and Z-axis movement.
In 1996, Eric Michelman from Microsoft present a model of a mass-market gadget with a scroll wheel.
In 1999, Bill Gates’ company introduc a radically new product with an optical sensor. Ball mice last for a couple more years, and then finally became a thing of the past, becoming museum exhibits.
Development of the computer mouse in the USSR
In the late 80s, Soviet inventors also join the unofficial computer race.
In 1989, employees of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Nail Malakhov and Alexander Pilar, design their own computer mouse designs.
Later, Oleg and Nina Yanushkevich from the “mailbox” (as the M. F. Reshetnev Scientific and Production Association of Appli Mechanics in Zheleznogorsk was call) appli for a patent. Their invention was “A graphic information manipulator of the “mouse” type.”
Perhaps patenting innovative technology open the door to industrial design
The first mice in the USSR were produc under the brand name “Martianka” at the MOKB “Mars” (it was engag in space navigation, ensuring, for example, the soft landing of the orbital ship “Buran” in 1988).
Contemporaries recall that the device phone number list look presentable and cost 150 rubles. Any buyer could choose a mouse of a suitable color: black, white, smoky and r.
There was an unofficial competition among programmers of that time: not only “Martiankas” were sold on the market, but also “Rats” or “Koloboks”. The latter were sold in a set with the personal Soviet computer ES-1841. The mocking nickname “kolobok” was given because of the massive metal ball inside (the “rat” was the same gadget call because of its gigantic size).
And a few words about the military
Some researchers believe that the origins of the computer mouse may not be “civilian” but military.
Ralph Benjamin, a graduate of the Imperial College in London, work on the creation of a radar. To determine the location of an object, a marker on the screen (in other words, a cursor) was ne. Benjamin suggest using not only a joystick (which was buy phone number data already known), but also a “roller ball”. The conventional trackball was patent by the military department in the name of the inventor.
It is possible that the idea of this particular design was indirectly us by the German company Telefunken Rollkugel, which in 1968 (almost simultaneously with Engelbart) present its mouse, reminiscent of a “spinning ball”.
Every year, hundrs of patent applications are fil for inventions , and even more for designs (call industrial designs ). But there have been no significant innovations in computer mouse design since the beginning of the 21st century. Stylish and compact gaming mice have appear, but they are all just variations on that first commercial model. And the official inventor will forever be the one who first fil a patent for the gadget.
