As he sat in that conference in 1961, it occurred to Douglas that what was needed was something the user could use to point to and select things on a screen. So, he put his creative imagination to work. One of his favorite ideas he had for this was a device with two small wheels that would roll across a tabletop. One wheel would turn vertically to control up-down cursor movements, and the other turned horizontally for left-right movements. In this way, a human could work in harmony with a computer, not independ- ent from it. He recorded this idea in his notebook.. A few years later, Douglas was ready to take the next step on his crusade. He and a co-worker by the name of Bill English built and tested dozens of interactive gadgets for moving an on-screen cursor. Among the devices they experimented with were light pens, joy- sticks, trackballs, and a very creatively built knee-controlled paddle that attached to the underside of a desk. They tried each one out, keeping track of each one’s ease of use and how fast it worked. Then Douglas remembered his notes from 1961 and gave them to Bill to build a model based on his idea. Bill returned with a small wooden box connected to a cord that could be held in your
hand and rolled across a surface on the two wheels underneath. This turned out to be the best-tested one. They named their new device a “mouse.”
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