Computer mouse to celebrate 40th birthday

Inventor "surprised the name stuck"

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1 December 2008 18:03 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

The computer mouse is to celebrate its 40th birthday next week. Invented by Doug Engelbart and his team at the Stanford Research Institute in California, the input device method first debuted in 1968.

Then a computer controller made from a carved wooden block with wheels, one researcher nicknamed it a "mouse".

"We thought that when it had escaped out to the world it would have a more dignified name", The Guardian quotes Engelbart recalling. "But it didn't".

"It was faster, and with it people made fewer mistakes. Five or six of us were involved in these tests, but no one can remember who started calling it a mouse. I'm surprised the name stuck".

Xerox developed the mouse in the Seventies and launched the first commercial version in 1981 but the mouse is not credited as a mainstream success until Apple bought the patent in 1984, and Microsoft adapted the tech for Windows.