X-Y Position Indicator For A Display System

On November 17, 1970, Douglas Engelbart received patent for a "X-Y Position Indicator For A Display System". He invented it at the Stanford Research Institute in 1963.The first mouse was bulky, and used two gear wheels perpendicular to each other: the rotation of each wheel was translated into motion along one axis in the plane. It was nicknamed mouse because the tale came out of the end.

Many people mistakenly believe that the mouse was invented by Apple. Others want to believe that Steve Jobs stole the idea from Xerox, where the mouse was used on an early office PC called the Star. Engelbart however notes that The Stanford Research Institute patented it but had no idea of its value. Some years later the license was sold to Apple for around $40,000.

In a paper that Engelbart and Bill English (responsible for the hardware design of the first mouse) published in early 1967, they refer to a “knee-control” device that appeared promising. That device was based on Engelbart's observation that the human foot was a pretty sensitive controller of the gas pedal in cars. With a little work they discovered that the knee offered even better control at slight movements in all directions. In tests, it outperformed the mouse by a small margin.