Diary of a Network Geek

The trials and tribulations of a Certified Novell Engineer who's been stranded in Houston, Texas.

12/9/2009

41st Birthday of the Mouse

Filed under: Deep Thoughts,Fun,Fun Work,Geek Work,Life, the Universe, and Everything,News and Current Events,Ooo, shiny... — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Hare which is terribly early in the morning or 6:03 am for you boring, normal people.
The moon is a Third Quarter Moon

It’s not quite the “birthday” of the mouse, but…

Today is the 41st anniversary of the first time a mouse made its commercial debut, though the patent was actually granted just a few weeks earlier on November 17th. That’s right, the mouse, that marvel of modern technology that most of us use daily is just a little older than I am. Invented by Douglas C. Engelbart and the group of 17 researchers working with him in the Augmentation Research Center at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, CA, the original mouse was little more than a square, wooden box, but the little device would change the world. Engelbart showed how the mouse could let a user jump from text on one part of the screen randomly to another section without having to scroll through the text inbetween. Doesn’t sound too revolutionary to us today, does it? But, think about how you navigated to this page to read this little blurb, then try to imagine doing it without a mouse.  Or, imagine trying to use Photoshop or any other graphic design program for that matter without the point-click-and-drag of a computer mouse.  Yeah, pretty much everything cool you can do on a computer these days involves a mouse or similar pointer.  Now, of course, to me, that’s the real genius of an invention like the mouse; it seems so obvious that we wonder why we didn’t think of it sooner!

So, happy demo day, little guy. Thanks for giving me a job and us a way to waste time at work.

1 Comment

  1. Love this…Happy Birthday Mr. Mouse :0)

    Comment by Jenn — 12/10/2009 @ 2:08 pm

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