Last updated on September 8th, 2023 at 11:24 pm
Why was the computer mouse invented?
The modern computer mouse we use today is an evolved and advanced version of the computer mouse. Before the invention of the computer mouse, people used the arrow keys on the keyboard to toggle around the screen to point to a particular area on display. Operating a computer system in this manner wasn’t a reliable method because the arrow couldn’t move freely. Innovation was needed in this domain to make it easy to operate computers with a low-level, initial graphical user interface.
Meanwhile, there was a secret design for the earlier mouse that existed and was in use by militaries like the UK, and Canadian Navy. That earlier design wasn’t called the mouse; instead, it was called a trackball. We’ll discuss its structure later in this article. Till then, let’s talk about who invented the mouse and what year exactly it was.
Who invented the computer mouse in what year?
An engineer, namely Douglas Carl Engelbart, along with Bill English, designed and invented to first ever computer mouse in 1964, and later, in November 1970, they patented their mouse. The first computer mouse was named Prototype Engelbart Mouse. The first operational mouse was rectangular in shape, made up of wood, and contained a pair of moving (rotating) disks that could rotate either in the X direction or the Y direction at a time. In this design, there was only a single button to interact with the computer. Although this wadsn’t a perfect design or a masterpiece, was a great invention of modern computing.
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According to the inventors, their main competition was the light pen, joystick, and trackball devices. These were available at that time but all of them had their own drawbacks, like the light pen having more weight and having a wired connection, which was disturbing while it was in use. Joysticks weren’t good enough, and the final option was trackballs, which were used by the military for decades.
The team that was developing the first computer mouse had the intention to test their mouse by quickly pointing and selecting particular letters from a text. Someone from the team called this new gadget Mouse because it looked similar to a mouse in shape.
The structure of the first Computer mouse
Design & Structure of the First Computer Mouse:
The first mouse had a wooden rectangle shape with a tiny button on its top right corner and a wire with a serial port connector.
Design and Structure of Trackballs and Ball-Based Mouse:
Trackballs had similarities with ball mice, but ball mice used the ball on the downside, whereas trackballs used the ball on the top. All four sides had a spinning disk that could move with the contact of that ball, and the movement was judged in that manner.
Evolution of Computer Mouse
The ball-based mice opened a door to a new era of communication and interaction with computers. Until 1984, the mouse devices weren’t popular in public until Apple launched its Macintosh with the mouse in a partnership with Xerox. Meanwhile, Microsoft also sold the mice with its systems, and the computer mice gained quick popularity. After that, many changes and modifications were made to the mouse’s design and structure, and nowadays we enjoy computer mice that are super responsive and have lots of functionalities.
Conclusion
This was all about the invention of Computer Mice we use in our day-to-day lives, If you are further interested in gaining knowledge about how other computer hardware was invented you can subscribe to this blog. Until that, you can read reviews on modern-day monitors and choose a good thing for you.