The Mouse- Timeline

The Computer Mouse Timeline

1952- The Royal Canadian Navy invented the trackball using a Canadian five-pin bowling ball as the user interface for their DATAR (Digital Automated Tracking and Resolving), a computerized battlefield information system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:DATAR_trackball.jpg

1963- Douglas Engelbart at the Stanford Research Institute invented the first computer mouse. He never received any royalties for it, as the patent ran out before it was shipped along with personal computers. Came with one button.

1972- While working for XEROX PARC, a research division of Xerox, Bill English invented the “ball mouse.” It replaced the external wheels of Engelbarts’ first models with a ball that can rotate in any direction; came as a part of the package of the original Xerox Alto computer.

1975- Both Ball and Wheel mices were manufactured heavily for Jack Hawley of Xerox, complete with three buttons. http://library.stanford.edu/mac/primary/images/hawley1.html

1977-Swiss professor Jean-Daniel Nicoud and engineer Andre Guignard created a modern design with a single rubber mouseball and three buttons- became a common design until the 1990s when the scroll-wheel mouse was created.

1980-First optical mice hit the market, which used photodiodes to detect movement instead of the surface used by mechanical mice.

January 24th, 1984- Large scale success of the mouse came with the release of the Apple Macintosh computer.

1986- Apple created the Apple Desktop Bus which allowed mice from other devices onto the bus with no configuration whatsoever.

1997- The Scroll Wheel really took off when Microsoft Office and internet explorer started supporting the wheel-scroll feature.

2004- Logitech introduced the laser optical mice, which is used widely today: has over 20 times more surface tracking power than the previous optical mice. Showed that mice can only become more and more advanced into the future.