It’s good to have you back with us as we continue to investigate the saga of the developing computer mouse. Before we get started, if you have not yet subscribed to the rss feed - you can get it here, because we have some nice surprises coming up in the very near future that we don’t want you to miss out on.

Dr. Douglas C. Engelbart, an American inventor whose team developed hypertext and networked computers, is best known for inventing the computer mouse in a joint effort with Bill English.

First computer mouse

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In 1967, Dr. Engelbart applied for a patent for a wooden shell with two metal wheels, describing it in the patent application as an “X-Y position indicator for a display system” . In 1970, he received a patent for the computer mouse (U.S. Patent 3,541,541), later revealing that it was given the adept nickname the “mouse” because of the long tail that came out the end. Click on the link above to see the image of the original computer mouse design.

Talk about humble beginnings!

First computer mouse

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It just looks so chic and stylish - well not REALLY, but it looks like it would feel quite comfortable resting in the palm of your hand.

A glimpse of things to come…

First computer mouse

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The Ball Mouse

Bill English, one of the builders of Engelbart’s original mouse, invented the “ball mouse” in 1972 which replaced the external wheels with a single ball that could then rotate in any direction. This mouse originally came out with the Xerox Alto computer.

First computer mouse

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The Smaky Mouse

Another mouse from the past came from the Swiss company Smaky, a line of mostly 8-bit personal computers that was developed by Professor Jean-Daniel Nicoud and others at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland beginning in 1974.

Smaky mouse

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Apple Macintosh Plus Mouse

In 1986,  Apple debuted the Apple Desktop Bus which allowed the daisy-chaining together of up to 16 computers, and included this simplistic little plastic box mouse design. Here are some of those mimalistic Apple Macintosh Plus mice, circa 1986.

First computer mouse

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Anyway, as we have mentioned before, technological applications usually go through a period of development before they finally turn into to the tool that we can’t do without. As much as we may look back at these early prototypes and chuckle, we look at the newest versions and tell ourselves that we HAVE to get one of those….

Logitech Mouse

New Logitech mouse

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A Computer Mouse with Plenty of Bling Effect

And no matter what you design, someone is going to come along and say to themselves ” Those are nice, but if we covered them with diamonds, they would be awesome. I guess at some level, it’s all just a matter of taste.

mouse covered with diamonds

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