Engineer created first computer mouse
Bill English, who has died aged 91, built the first prototype of the computer mouse, based on an idea by Doug Engelbart, who is sometimes known as the “father of modern computing”; English went on to develop the ball mouse, which has since been superseded by the optical mouse.
Having experimented with joysticks, light pens and other “pointy devices,” the pair settled on what became known as the “mouse,” although both denied responsibility for that name.
The prototype, built in 1963 but ignored, consisted of a pinewood block with two wheels, a single button and a cable — as well as a pair of potentiometers to interpret the positions of the wheels and regulate the cursor (then called a cat or a bug).
The pair demonstrated the mouse as part of their experimental computer, known as an on-line System (or NLS), in December 1968 at a conference in San Francisco that is widely known as “the mother of all demos” and included early examples of word processing and hyperlinks.
Engelbart, who died in 2013, was on stage while English, who in his spare time was stage manager for a local drama group, co-ordinated the presentation from the back of the auditorium. He was linked to a computer in Menlo Park 50 km away, a primitive demonstration of video conferencing.
He recalled the reaction: “Standing ovation … People went up to talk to Doug about it. People came back to talk to us on the platform about how (we did) this.” Although their presentation had not been authorized by their superiors, the event is seen as a seminal moment in computing.
However, it took Apple to attach the mouse to its Lisa computer in the 1980s for the electronic rodent to become a big cheese. It was then used with Microsoft Windows and has since become an integral component of almost every computer.
William Kirk English was born in Lexington, Ky., on Jan. 27, 1929. He studied electrical engineering at the University of Kentucky and, after serving with the U.S. Navy, took a master’s at Stanford University. In 1962 he joined the Stanford Research Institute, where he met Engelbart, director of the institute’s Augmentation Research Center, which was developing the “electronic office.” Both took part in LSD tests sponsored by the U.S. government.