Co-inventor of the computer mouse, William English, dies
- Reference: 1596439986
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/08/03/the_inventor_of_the_mouse/
- Source link:
English joined the Stanford Research Institute, now known as SRI International, in the late 1950s after leaving the Navy. There he met Douglas Engelbart, a fellow engineer who would become pivotal in the development of a new type of computer.
Computers of that era relied on punch cards and other user interface horrors.
Engelbart wanted to create a new type of computer that anyone could use by manipulating images on a screen and dreamed up a mechanical device that could perform tasks by selecting particular symbols or images.
Using Engelbart's notes, English built the first prototype of a computer mouse in 1963. The device was housed inside a small pinewood case and consisted of two electrical mechanisms, called potentiometers, that tracked the movement of two small wheels as they moved across a physical desktop.
The device was called a mouse because of the way the cursor, then called a CAT, seemed to chase the device's path across the screen.
Two years later, English led a project sponsored by NASA to evaluate which device could navigate a computer display the fastest. The mouse he helped develop alongside Engelbart won.
The experimental computer system that Engelbart pioneered, called oNLine System, or, more commonly, NLS, was unveiled at "The Mother of All Demos", an event on 9 December 1968 in San Francisco that has since been hailed as one of the most important events in the history of interactive computing.
The 90-minute demonstration showed early forms of text editing, video conferencing and hypertext. As Engelbart addressed the audience in-person, English used live video and the mouse he helped design to direct the computer more than 48km away in Menlo Park, California.
After leaving SRI in 1971, English joined a new Xerox lab called the Palo Alto Research Centre, or Parc, where he adapted Engelbart's computer idea to help build a new machine. The Alto, as it came to be called, inspired the Apple Macintosh. The rest is history.
While working at PARC, English developed the ball mouse, which replaced the wheels of his original design with a sphere that could move in multiple directions.
English died at a medical facility in San Rafael, California on 26 July 2020 as a result of respiratory failure. ®
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Re: Revolutionary
The mouse that roared?
Re: Revolutionary
"Doug Engelbart had the idea. Bill English did the engineering"
Add a dreamer to an engineer. Subtract a beancounter. Sprinkle some place and time. Stand back and watch.
It doesn't always work, but it's a damn good start.
Trackerball?
I'd heard from someone that worked at Xerox Parc that the ball based mouse was derived from the tracker ball and that they really wanted a pen sized one to work on a desk. However a mouse is actually less tiring to hold than say a Wacom stylus, though the stylus allows easier writing and sketching. The mouse is indeed a selection device easier to control accurately than a finger on a touch screen. Writing with a mouse is like trying to write with a potato.
The mouse is still the best GUI selection device, though I don't miss the ball. Or cleaning the rollers for people mysteriously unable to do it. The first optical mouse I had used a special grid on a mat in the mid 1980s.
A pint for the dear departed.
Re: Trackerball?
"a pen sized one to work on a desk."
That idea did make it to market eventually. The "nib" was a lot more than pen sized though and a bit unwieldy compared to using what was now the accepted standard of a mouse.
Re: Trackerball?
Or cleaning the rollers for people mysteriously unable to do it.
I saw a lady using her hijab to clean them in Glasgow University library in the 80's!
Re: Trackerball?
Wikipedia suggests that the trackball was (possibly independently) invented a couple of times, as far back as the 1947, for experimental radar and other naval control systems. However, their military secret status meant that they weren't patented.
Re: Trackerball?
I remember the military applications well.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_Command ;)
I gotta think about that
We was always gonna do it by ourselves
Mouses chase CATs? I daresay some involved remember that as being true, but it's a new one on me. Other accounts, including Englebart's, say that the device was called a mouse because the cord looked like a mouse's tail.
> "Wired Style: Principles of English Usage in the Digital Age"
(ed. Constance Hale, HardWired, 1996, ISBN 1-888869-01-1) says:
"What's the plural of that small, rolling pointing device invented by Douglas Engelbart in 1964? We prefer ~mouses~. ~Mice~ is just too suggestive of furry little creatures. But both terms are common, so take your pick. We actually emailed Engelbart to see what he'd say. His answer? 'Haven't given the matter much thought.'
"In fact, Engelbart shared credit for the name with 'a small group in my lab at SRI.' Nobody among his colleagues seems to remember who first nicknamed the device, but all agree that the name was given because the cord ('tail') initially came out the 'back' of the device. 'Very soon we realised that the connecting wire should be brought out the "front" instead of the back,' Engelbart notes, but by then the name had stuck."
What the above doesn't mention is that plurals like mice and lice (as opposed to houses) are for things of which there are too many to count - they are innumerable (we're talking swarms of mice in your granary, this is before pet mice of which you might have 2, or 9). We might all have a drawer or box of old computer mouses, but they can be counted accurately. They're not running around and hiding, for starters.
They're not running around and hiding, for starters.
You've obviously never tried running a system with a cordless mouse in a household with real-live cats ...
Mouses? Mice?
The plural of "mouse" is of course "meeces"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixie_and_Dixie_and_Mr._Jinks
Revolutionary
Raise your glasses for a man and a mouse.