Engelbart, inventor of computer mouse, dies at 88

July 4, 2013 - 10:35 PM


FILE - In this April 9, 1997 file photo, Doug Engelbart, inventor of the computer mouse and winner of the half-million dollar 1997 Lemelson-MIT prize, poses with the computer mouse he designed, in New York. Engelbart has died at the age of 88. The cause of death wasn't immediately known. (AP Photo/Michael Schmelling, File)





Engelbart "brought tremendous value to society," said Curtis R. Carlson, the CEO of SRI International, where Engelbart worked when it was still known as the Stanford Research Institute. "We will miss his genius, warmth and charm. Doug's legacy is immense. Anyone in the world who uses a mouse or enjoys the productive benefits of a personal computer is indebted to him."

The notion of operating the inside of a computer with a tool on the outside was way ahead of its time when Engelbart began working on it. The mouse didn't become commercially available until 1984, with the released of Apple's then-revolutionary Macintosh, a prelude to future breakthroughs such as the iPhone and iPad.

All of those devices were conceived by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who died in October 2011. Although Jobs' contributions to personal technology are far better known, Engelbart left an indelible mark, too.

"There are only a handful of people who were as influential," said Marc Weber, founder and curator of the Internet history program at the Computer History Museum, where Engelbart had been a fellow since 2005. "He had a complete vision of what computers could become at a very early stage. He was thinking about these things when computers were used just for calculations and number crunching. They weren't interactive at all, so it was pretty radical at the time."


Although computer mice remain prevalent, their usage is waning as people increasingly control smartphones and tablets in an even simpler way: by merely swiping their finger across a display screen. But the leap to touch-screen controls might not have been made if the mouse hadn't simplified computing in the first place.

Among Engelbart's other key developments in computing, along with his colleagues at the Stanford Research Institute and his own lab, the Augmentation Research Center, was the use of multiple windows. Engelbart's lab also helped develop ARPANet, the government research network that led to the Internet.

In a precursor to the dramatic presentations that Apple's Jobs became famous for, Engelbart dazzled the industry at a San Francisco computer conference in 1968. Working from his house with a homemade modem, he used his lab's elaborate new online system to illustrate his ideas to the audience, while his staff linked in from the lab. It was the first public demonstration of the mouse and video teleconferencing, and it prompted a standing ovation.



"Many of those firsts came right out of the staff's innovations — even had to be explained to me before I could understand them," he said in a biography written by his daughter Christina. "They deserve more recognition."

In 1997, Engelbart won the most lucrative award for American inventors, the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize. Three years later, President Bill Clinton bestowed Engelbart with the National Medal of Technology "for creating the foundations of personal computing."



After the war, Engelbart worked as an electrical engineer for what is now NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. Restless, and dreaming of computers that could change the world, Engelbart left Ames to pursue his Ph.D. at University of California, Berkeley.

He earned his degree in 1955. But after joining the faculty, Engelbart was warned by a colleague that if he kept talking about his "wild ideas" he'd be an acting assistant professor forever. So he left for the research position at SRI.


Engelbart is survived by his wife, Karen O'Leary Engelbart; his four children, Diana, Christina, Norman and Greda; and nine grandchildren.



Video of his 1968 demonstration: http://sloan.stanford.edu/mousesite/1968Demo.html