Larry Magid: Remembering The Inventor Of The Computer Mouse
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) — Doug Engelbart, the inventor of the computer mouse and developer of early incarnations of email, word processing programs and the Internet, has died at the age of 88.
The Computer History Museum in Mountain View confirmed the daughter of Doug Engelbart emailed them about his death Wednesday morning. The cause of death wasn't immediately known.
Engelbart's biggest breakthrough was the computer mouse, which he developed in the 1960s and patented in 1970. At the time, it was a wooden shell covering two metal wheels.
In some ways he is also considered the father of the internet. In 1969, he demonstrated network computing to allow scientists to collaborate. While that had already been thought up, he developed a way to show how it could be done interactively with a keyboard and mouse in front of about 1,000 computer scientists.
He worked with a mouse company in the East Bay for a brief stint and he remained active for much of his life as a contributor and pioneer in terms of computer science and technology.
Inventor of the Mouse Dies
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