A legend has passed from this world. A legend who helped bring you one of the most commonly used devices since his introduction of it back in 1965. That legend is William (Bill) English and the invention was known as the “computer mouse”. Still heavily used today, many companies have attempted to replace it with other means, yet it still reigns as the most commonly used pointing device in today’s computers.
Eventually, it will be replaced by touch or cognitive interfaces much more advanced than what we currently have, but it doesn’t seem to be going anyway any time soon. So it must have been quite the experience to make it all the way to the glorious age of 91, while still running into something you helped create, at every turn.
I remember, back when I was just breaking out into the world of employment, I had worked for CompUSA (a computer/electronics retailer chain). One day I was approached by the training manager (they offered paid computer training classes in the back rooms for customers) with the interest of instructing one of the classes for the day. It was a Computers 101-style class, digging into the most basic of topics.
The class was made up mostly of older generations that were having trouble trying to grasp the age of computers and how they were starting to take everything over. I made it about 15 minutes into the class until one of the attendees had asked “why do they call it a mouse?”, where I then said it was likely because it looked like a mouse in ways. They weren’t happy with my generic response and the topic quickly became an obsession by the class. It led to my having to look up the back story on the computer mouse so that I had an answer they were satisfied with. We went through it all together, which included learning about Bill English and his introduction of the concept of a mouse, which led to it eventually being demonstrated to the public by his cohort, Douglas Engelbart (who passed away back in 2013).
I never expected the class to turn into a discussion on history instead of a proper lesson on how to actually use the devices these men help create. However, it made for a fun lesson where even I was enlightened by the information.
You can learn more about the history of the computer mouse here, and explore the past of these two gentlemen and how the mouse progressed and mutated through the years to give birth to similar devices (ie, trackball), while still maintaining its dominance.
Header Image by Marcin Wichary – CC BY 2.0 (source) – Slightly adjusted/cleaned up for presentation.
