Sara S
05-13-2009, 03:19 PM
from delancyplace.com
In today's excerpt - the computer mouse. In
1964, Douglas Engelbart of the Stanford
Research Institute (SRI) invented what became
known as the computer mouse. It was called
the mouse because it "chased" the cursor on
the screen, then known as a CAT:
"Engelbart had almost - but not quite - hit
upon the concept of the mouse in his original
1962 paper. With his NASA funding, he began
exploring pointing devices and became
interested in the problem of selecting text
or graphics objects that were displayed on
his screen. The goal of the study was to
discover which device would allow a user to
get to a given point on the screen most
quickly as well as repeatedly with the fewest
errors. ...
"Other kinds of pointing devices were already
in use, including light pens, trackballs, and
tablets with styli. The RAND Corporation had
invented the latter, and though Engelbart
hoped for a while that he could persuade them
to lend him one for their research, the
company told him it didn't have any
available.
"The actual idea of a rolling, handheld
pointing device came to Engelbart one day
when he was at a computer-graphics
conference. As he often did, he was feeling
like an outsider, because everyone was
talking, and he was uncomfortable and having
trouble making himself heard. At times like
this, he frequently tuned out and dropped
into his own reverie. ...
"Pulling a small notepad from his shirt
pocket, he made a quick sketch of a device
that would track movement across a desktop.
The idea was to use the two wheels to drive
two potentiometers - devices that would
register varying voltages as they were
turned. Each one would move depending on the
degree to which the wheels turned, and the
resulting voltage could then be translated
into the position of a
cursor - they originally called it a 'bug' -
on the screen. ...
"[He] turned to an SRI draftsman to carve an
elegant, hand-sized lacquered pine case large
enough to contain the two wheels and two
potentiometers, and then gave the case to a
craftsman at the SRI machine shop to
manufacture the other mechanical components.
The original mouse that the team assembled
was large and bulky, in part because of the
size of the available potentiometers. [Bill]
English had also figured that he would need a
device that would roll about five inches, a
distance that could be translated into the
width of the screen. That, in turn, required
large wheels, which would rotate only once in
five inches of travel.
"Although it is commonly believed that the
story of how the mouse got its name has been
lost in history, Roger Bates, who was a young
hardware designer working for Bill English,
has a clear recollection of how the name was
chosen. ... He remembers that what today is
called the cursor on the screen was at the
time called a 'CAT.' Bates has forgotten what
CAT stood for, and no one else seems to
remember either, but in hindsight it seems
obvious that the CAT would chase the tailed
mouse on the desktop."
John Markoff, What the Dormouse Said: How
the 60's Counterculture Shaped the Personal
Computer, Penguin, Copyright 2005 by John
Markoff, pp. 54-56.
In today's excerpt - the computer mouse. In
1964, Douglas Engelbart of the Stanford
Research Institute (SRI) invented what became
known as the computer mouse. It was called
the mouse because it "chased" the cursor on
the screen, then known as a CAT:
"Engelbart had almost - but not quite - hit
upon the concept of the mouse in his original
1962 paper. With his NASA funding, he began
exploring pointing devices and became
interested in the problem of selecting text
or graphics objects that were displayed on
his screen. The goal of the study was to
discover which device would allow a user to
get to a given point on the screen most
quickly as well as repeatedly with the fewest
errors. ...
"Other kinds of pointing devices were already
in use, including light pens, trackballs, and
tablets with styli. The RAND Corporation had
invented the latter, and though Engelbart
hoped for a while that he could persuade them
to lend him one for their research, the
company told him it didn't have any
available.
"The actual idea of a rolling, handheld
pointing device came to Engelbart one day
when he was at a computer-graphics
conference. As he often did, he was feeling
like an outsider, because everyone was
talking, and he was uncomfortable and having
trouble making himself heard. At times like
this, he frequently tuned out and dropped
into his own reverie. ...
"Pulling a small notepad from his shirt
pocket, he made a quick sketch of a device
that would track movement across a desktop.
The idea was to use the two wheels to drive
two potentiometers - devices that would
register varying voltages as they were
turned. Each one would move depending on the
degree to which the wheels turned, and the
resulting voltage could then be translated
into the position of a
cursor - they originally called it a 'bug' -
on the screen. ...
"[He] turned to an SRI draftsman to carve an
elegant, hand-sized lacquered pine case large
enough to contain the two wheels and two
potentiometers, and then gave the case to a
craftsman at the SRI machine shop to
manufacture the other mechanical components.
The original mouse that the team assembled
was large and bulky, in part because of the
size of the available potentiometers. [Bill]
English had also figured that he would need a
device that would roll about five inches, a
distance that could be translated into the
width of the screen. That, in turn, required
large wheels, which would rotate only once in
five inches of travel.
"Although it is commonly believed that the
story of how the mouse got its name has been
lost in history, Roger Bates, who was a young
hardware designer working for Bill English,
has a clear recollection of how the name was
chosen. ... He remembers that what today is
called the cursor on the screen was at the
time called a 'CAT.' Bates has forgotten what
CAT stood for, and no one else seems to
remember either, but in hindsight it seems
obvious that the CAT would chase the tailed
mouse on the desktop."
John Markoff, What the Dormouse Said: How
the 60's Counterculture Shaped the Personal
Computer, Penguin, Copyright 2005 by John
Markoff, pp. 54-56.