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After 40 years' service, computer mouse heads to its death
By siliconindia
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Tuesday, 02 December 2008, 20:30 IST |
2 Comments
Bangalore: That small electronic piece has been constantly moving around on computer desks to control the machines all over the world for last 40 years.
Invented by Doug Engelbart and his team at the Stanford Research Institute in California when they felt that there was a need of an easier way to control computers, computer mouse entered the arena of common use when it was launched by Apple Macintosh in 1984.
Prior to Apple Macintosh buying its patent for just $40,000, its commercial version was developed by Xerox during the 1870's. It had to be released with Xerox Star computer system in 1981 but the system failed to succeed. Then Apple bought the patent and made its success assured. The mouse and keyboard combo is still in use across the world.
Though the mouse's birthday will be celebrated next week when Engelbart returns to Stanford. But mouse could be facing death at the hands of new technology which is keen on adding more features to it. The control methods of both the Wii and iPhone show the future, a future in which the mouse will be seen as historic rather than current. Many people using laptops have started using touchpads already.
Moreover, a trend of using short keys for almost all the functions is increasingly gripping those who work long hours at computer. "I can increase my work speed if I use short keys instead of mouse," says Raghu Ram, a graphic designer. "After two or three generations, people might not be even aware that an electronic piece called mouse had controlled computers in the past," he adds.