Etymology and plural

The first known publication of the term "mouse" as a pointing device is in Bill English's 1965 publication "Computer-Aided Display Control".[3]

The Compact Oxford English Dictionary (third edition) and the fourth edition of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language endorse both computer mice and computer mouses as correct plural forms for computer mouse. Some authors of technical documents may prefer either mouse devices or the more generic pointing devices. The plural mouses treats mouse as a "headless noun."

Two manuals of style in the computer industry – Sun Technical Publication's Read Me First: A Style Guide for the Computer Industry and Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications from Microsoft Press – recommend that technical writers use the term mouse devices instead of the alternatives.

[edit] Technologies

[edit] Early mice

The world's first trackball invented by Tom Cranston, Fred Longstaff and Kenyon Taylor working on the Royal Canadian Navy's DATAR project in 1952. It used a standard Canadian five-pin bowling ball. It was not patented, as it was a secret military project.


Early mouse patents. From left to right: Opposing track wheels by Engelbart, Nov. 1970, U.S. Patent 3,541,541 . Ball and wheel by Rider, Sept. 1974, U.S. Patent 3,835,464 . Ball and two rollers with spring by Opocensky, Oct. 1976, U.S. Patent 3,987,685 .


The first computer mouse, held by inventor Douglas Engelbart, showing the wheels that make contact with the working surface


A Smaky mouse, as invented at the EPFL by Jean-Daniel Nicoud and André Guignard.

Douglas Engelbart at the Stanford Research Institute invented the mouse in 1968[4] after extensive usability testing. He initially received inspiration for the design after reviewing a series of experiments conducted in the early 1960's by American geneticist Clarence Cook Little. Intrigued by Little's examination of laboratory mice at the National Cancer Institute, Engelbart endeavored to design a more efficient method for controlling computers, based on small movements of the hand corresponding to a point on a screen. The term "mouse" is a play on this connection, originally coined by Bill English, Engelbart's friend and colleague at the institute. He never received any royalties for it, as his patent ran out before it became widely used in personal computers.[5]

The invention of the mouse was just a tiny piece of Engelbart's much larger project, aimed at augmenting human intellect.[6]

Eleven years earlier, the Royal Canadian Navy had invented the trackball using a Canadian five-pin bowling ball as a user interface for their DATAR system.[7]

Several other experimental pointing-devices developed for Engelbart's oN-Line System (NLS) exploited different body movements – for example, head-mounted devices attached to the chin or nose – but ultimately the mouse won out because of its simplicity and convenience. The first mouse, a bulky device (pictured) used two gear-wheels perpendicular to each other: the rotation of each wheel translated into motion along one axis. Engelbart received patent US3541541 on November 17, 1970 for an "X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System".[8] At the time, Engelbart envisaged that users would hold the mouse continuously in one hand and type on a five-key chord keyset with the other.[9] The concept was preceded in the 19th century by the telautograph, which also anticipated the fax machine.