Mouse Turns 40 - On December 9 / 2008

Right now, in 2008, we may have optical cordless mice, complex gaming mice, floating air mice and even space explorer and navigator 3D mice too. You may not even imagine your computer work, without a mouse. I can bet that most of the people do not even know that it is possible to control the mouse cursor with keyboard number keys.
Although, a mouse may go un-noticed, in front of your 19" TFT screen, but believe me that you cannot work for a single day, without a mouse.
The name was never meant to stick. When Doug Engelbart and his team at the Stanford Research Institute in California designed a computer controller encased in a carved-out wooden block, with wheels mounted on the underbelly, one researcher nicknamed it a 'mouse'. 'We thought that when it had escaped out to the world it would have a more dignified name,' Engelbart recalled later. 'But it didn't.'

Engelbart's invention became the mouse that soared, an essential piece of computer hardware. Its 40th birthday will be celebrated next week when Engelbart returns to Stanford (now known as SRI International). The mouse was first shown to the world when he gave a presentation of a working network computer system in San Francisco on 9 December, 1968, which is still revered as 'the dawn of interactive computing'.

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