The world's first computer mouse, as we know it today, was invented by Douglas Engelbart in the 1960s. Engelbart, an American engineer and inventor, developed the mouse as part of his work on interactive computing at the Stanford Research Institute.
The prototype of Engelbart's mouse, which he initially called an "X-Y position indicator for a display system," consisted of a wooden shell with two perpendicular metal wheels that could track movement in two dimensions. It had a single button, which was used for selecting objects on the screen.
Engelbart demonstrated his mouse and other groundbreaking technologies in a famous presentation known as "The Mother of All Demos" in 1968. This demonstration showcased numerous innovations, including the mouse, hypertext, video conferencing, and collaborative editing, all of which would become foundational elements of modern computing.
While Engelbart's invention was the first mouse to gain widespread recognition and be integrated into subsequent computer systems, it's worth noting that there were earlier attempts to develop similar pointing devices. For example, in the 1950s, an engineer named Ralph Benjamin created a device called the "Rollkugel" that could move a cursor on a screen. However, Engelbart's mouse was the first to feature the combination of a hand-held device and the graphical user interface that we associate with modern mice.
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