The man who co-invented the world’s first computer mouse has died at the age of 91

One of the pioneers responsible behind the creation of the world’s first computer mouse, William “Bill” English, passed away on 26 July in San Rafael California at the age of 91. 

English co-invented the mouse at the Stanford Research Insitute together with Douglas C. Engelbart, who passed away in 2013 at age 88. Englebart had the idea to create the mouse after attending a computer graphics conference and brainstormed on ways to move an on-screen cursor.

English then go on to invent the first mouse based on a sketch that Englebart showed him. The latter envisioned a machine that would allow anyone to manipulate images on a screen. The idea was considered visionary at the time as computers were mainly used by specialists that entered and retrieved information via punched cards, typewriters and printouts.

While it would not be recognised today as a mouse, the device consisted of two electrical mechanisms that tracked the movement of two small wheels as they moved across a desktop. They called it a mouse because of the way the computer’s onscreen cursor, called a CAT, seemed to chase the device’s path.

Englebert would serve as the public face of the duo and showed it off in 1968 during what was dubbed ‘the mother of all demos’. Watch the demonstration of the world’s first mouse below.

The mouse remained an obscure computing accessory until Apple introduced the Lisa in 1983 and Macintosh in 1984. The first Macintosh mouse, model M0100, used a rubber ball for tracking and connected to the computer via a DE-9 connector.

Over the decades since its introduction, the mouse that we use today has evolved from using trackballs that often needed to be cleaned. That soon made way optical mice that we know and love today and later on the introduction of Bluetooth technology used in today’s wireless mice.

Sadly, English isn’t the only computer pioneer who has passed on this year. Back in February, Larry Tesler, the co-inventor of copy-and-paste, died at the age of 74. Tesler was one of the engineers who demonstrated PARC’s graphical user interface and mouse to Apple’s Steve Jobs. This would later lead to the creation of Apple’s LISA and Macintosh computers in the mid-1980s.

Related reading