Computer Mouse

Douglas Engelbart, USA, patent 3,541,541 of 1970. The X-Y position indicator that pointed the way.

Overview

Engelbart's SRI team built the wooden-wheel mouse for the 1968 Mother of All Demos, patenting an X-Y position indicator for a display system. He never profited, the patent belonging to SRI and expiring 1987 before mice went mass. Xerox's Alto made pointing standard; Apple's 1984 Lisa and Macintosh shipped them. The 1968 demo also introduced videoconferencing, hypertext, and windows. Engelbart's cursor arrow still points at his unmonetized genius.