Maker’s first mouse William English dies at the age of 91

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The maker of the first mouse for computer control, the American William English, has passed away at the age of 91. English built the first mouse after his colleague Douglas Engelbart came up with the concept.

That first mouse used two potentiometers to monitor the movement of the device, after which software conjured a cursor on the screen and showed that movement on the computer, The New York Times writes. It’s the way mice worked for decades afterward.

English called the device a mouse because the cursor on the screen was named CAT. “Sometimes I apologize for that name. We started with that name and simply never changed it,” said English colleague Engelbart during the ‘Mother of all demos’ in December 1968.

In that demonstration, Engelbart and English showed other computer concepts that are still known, in addition to the mouse, such as video calling, online text editors and hyperlinks. English was then working for the Stanford Research Institute, but three years later he went to Xerox Parc, the research institute where the ‘first PC’ Alto developed in the early 1970s. The American died of respiratory problems last week at the age of 91.

Mother of all Demos in 1968. The presenter is Engelbart, but English directed and arranged the remote connection to Menlo Park, where another part of the demonstration took place

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