Computer mouse turns 40

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the public debut of the computer mouse.

Today, the U.K.’s Telegraph published an article celebrating this milestone.

Featuring an interview with the man who created the mouse, Doug Engelbart, the article recounts the evolution of the device.

Engelbart designed the device as a means to make computer usage easier. Prior to the mouse, computer operators had to use a light pen to navigate the screen. The first mouse prototype Engelbart created was no more than a block of wood with some sensors and a wire sticking out the back.

It was because of this wire that one of the Engelbart’s fellow researchers nicknamed the device a mouse, and the name stuck.

Engelbart thought that “mouse” would eventually be changed to “a more dignified name”, but the moniker went unchanged when the device debuted in San Francisco in 1968.

When Apple rolled out its Apple Macintosh in 1984, using a mouse for home computing became the status quo and the mouse has enjoyed screen-navigation dominance since.

However, the article explains, that recent advances in touch-screen and motion-controlled technologies may soon topple the mouse from its pedestal, and it may become obsolete sometime in the near future.