We share clear English to help you understand the world. Here is today’s fact: an early computer mouse was made of redwood.
Transcript
Welcome to Slow English FM. This is Daily Random Facts, where one surprising detail opens a window onto a bigger story. We share clear English to help you understand the world. Here is today’s fact: an early computer mouse was made of redwood.
EmmaIn the early 1960s, Douglas Engelbart’s lab at the Stanford Research Institute, or SRI, explored ways computers could support people’s work. SRI engineer Bill English built a wooden mouse prototype in 1964. The institute’s machine shop made it from redwood. Wheels under the mouse turned movement across a desk into movement of a cursor on the screen. A cursor is the small marker that shows where you are pointing.
That mouse was part of a larger project. Engelbart’s oNLine System, or NLS, was an experimental computer system for working with information. It included hypertext, which means linked information that lets users move from one related item to another. It also supported text editing, several windows, and shared-screen meetings. The goal was to help people organize information and work together.
EmmaOn December 9, 1968, Engelbart and his colleagues showed NLS at a computing conference in San Francisco. During the presentation, the mouse helped Engelbart point to and work with items on the screen. One example, described by the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center, was a map of his route home. Selecting the word “Library” opened a related list that included a reminder about overdue books. A screen could connect related information, not just display a page.
The wooden body may seem far from the plastic computer accessories many people know today. But the important idea was how the mouse helped people work with information on a screen. SRI says the early design offered an alternative to costly light pens. Later, English developed a ball-based mouse at Xerox PARC for its Alto computer. At the 1968 demonstration, the mouse appeared alongside editing, windows, links, and ways to collaborate. It was one part of a broader change in how people could use computers.
EmmaThanks for listening to Daily Random Facts on Slow English FM. Stay with us for more stories in clear English.
Vocabulary in this episode
- prototype
SRI engineer Bill English built a wooden mouse prototype in 1964.
A prototype is an early version made to test an idea or design.
- cursor
Wheels under the mouse turned movement across a desk into movement of a cursor on the screen.
Here, a cursor is the marker on a screen that shows where the mouse points.
- cursor
A cursor is the small marker that shows where you are pointing.
Here, a cursor is the small screen marker that shows the pointing position.
- hypertext
It included hypertext, which means linked information that lets users move from one related item to another.
Hypertext is information connected by links, so users can move between related items.
- overdue
Selecting the word “Library” opened a related list that included a reminder about overdue books.
Overdue books are books that should already have been returned.
- ball-based mouse
Later, English developed a ball-based mouse at Xerox PARC for its Alto computer.
This is a mouse that uses a rolling ball to detect movement.
- collaborate
At the 1968 demonstration, the mouse appeared alongside editing, windows, links, and ways to collaborate.
To collaborate means to work together with other people.