1968 was not the year the first mouse was built.
The first prototype was developed at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) around 1964, as part of the work led by Douglas Engelbart and engineer Bill English. SRI confirms that Bill English built the first prototype, while Engelbart conceived the invention and the system's underlying concept.
It was made of wood and contained an internal wheel mechanism to track movement along two axes. The initial version featured only a single button.
So, why is 1968 famous?
On December 9, 1968, Engelbart demonstrated his team's computer system in San Francisco during an event that would later become known as:
“The Mother of All Demos”
Around 1,000 people witnessed a demonstration that, in hindsight, looks remarkably like a preview of the modern computer.
He demonstrated not only the mouse but also:
real-time text editing
hypertext
windows
information linking
on-screen collaboration
video conferencing
real-time computer interaction
Even more astonishingly, the computer he demonstrated was nothing like a modern PC. The system was connected from the stage in San Francisco to the SRI laboratory in Menlo Park via a telephone line.
🧠 A fascinating detail worth sharing
The name "mouse" didn't come from the device looking like the animal.
It originated from the connecting cord at the back, which resembled a mouse's tail.
And this mouse wasn't originally designed for gaming or clicking on icons.
It was created to solve a much bigger problem:
How could humans interact with the ever-growing amount of information on computer screens?