On 9 December 1968 Douglas Engelbart with a team of 17 scientists
presented a 90-minute live public demonstration of the online system
(NLS) at Stanford Research Institute, Menlo Park, California, USA.
The presentation, with the public debut of the computer mouse, was
one of the sessions of the “Fall Joint Computer Conference” at
the Convention Center in San Francisco. Some 1000 computer
specialists attended the demonstration.
In addition to the mouse other
innovations were demonstrated by Engelbart and his team, including
hypertext, object addressing and dynamic file linking, and
shared-screen collaboration communicating over a network with audio
and video interface. All very futuristic in 1968.
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| Douglas Engelbart |
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The NLS keyboard console with the chord set on the left and the mouse
on the right
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The original name for the pointing
device, invented in 1964 by Engelbart, was “X-Y position indicator
for a display system”. It was patented under that name in 1970.
This first mouse was made of a wooden shell with a circuit board and
two metal wheels that came into contact with the surface it was being
used on. It was designed by Bill English who later in 1972 developed
a ball mouse in which a ball replaced the two metal wheels. It worked
similar to the German movable ball-based device Rollkugel developed
by Rainer Mallebrein at Telefunken in 1968.
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| Douglas Engelbart |
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| Rollkugel by Rainer Mallebrein (Telefunken, West Germany, 1968) |
The Engelbart’s demonstration has
grown to a legend with the years, nothing could top it since and it
is now described as "the mother of all demos".
First mouse demonstration
Full demonstration video
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