The First Mouse
The very first computer mouse was created by Douglas Engelbart in 1964, and it was made for the PC age. It was a wooden box with two wheels that made contact with the surface and it only had one button. Douglas Engelbart of SRI was part of an experiment conducted by DARPA to develop a better way to interact with computers. DARPA's creation of the mouse was among the first innovations that would help shape the future of information technology. Over the next five decades, the company would play a leading role in developing new technologies.
About Douglas Engelbart
Douglas Carl Engelbart, born on January 30th in 1925, was an engineer and an early Internet pioneer. He was most known for his work on the field of human-computer interaction, which led to the creation of the computer mouse and the development of various graphical user interfaces. The Augmentation Research Center's NLS, which was headed by Engelbart, showed numerous technologies, some of which are now widely used. It was acquired by McDonnell Douglas from SRI in 1984 and was renamed the Doug Engelbart institute. In 1988, Doug Engelbart and Christina founded The Doug Engelbart Institute to promote his vision. Their effort resulted in DARPA funding to update the UI of Augment.
He was the middle child in a family of three children. His father died when he was 8 years old. He graduated from high school in 1942. He spent two years in the Navy in the Philippines. While stationed there, he was inspired by Vannevar Bush's book "As We May Think." He studied electrical engineering at Oregon State. He got his master's degree at Oregon State University before getting a job at the Ames Research Center. There, he met Ballard Fish, who was just completing her occupational therapy training. They were married on May 5, 1951, at Portola State Park. Engelbart pursued graduate studies at UC Berkeley before going back to Ames.
The First Optics Model Mouse
Most of the mice before the optical mouse were made with balls als a way of moving the mouse on screen. This mouse is the first mouse to use light as a guiding source, this made the mouse dustproof. However the mouse needed a mouse pad with it which was most likely expensive. It was made by Steven Kirsch in 1981.
The First Apple Mouse
The Apple Lisa mouse was one of the first commercially available mice. It was based on the Alto computer's original design and features a steel ball instead of the usual rubber. Though it was developed by Apple, the exact design and development of the device were handled by an outside firm called Hovey-Kelley. They built hundreds of prototypes and tested extensively with focus groups before finally producing the perfect device. The design and development of the mouse were done in-house by Bill Dresselhaus. The original case design was based on Art Deco lines and had a rounded shape.
How Ball Mice Work
The mouse works by moving it across the surface of your desk, the ball rolls using the weight of the mouse and your hand and the ball pushes against two rollers which are number 6 and 7 on the picture. Number 6 detects whether the mouse is moving from left to right, somewhat like the x-axis on a graph, and number 7 detects whether the mouse is moving up and down, somewhat like the y-axis on a graph. Inside the mouse is a microchip that reads how many times a light beam is broken within part number 6 and 7. When the mouse is moved from left to right, top to bottom or in a diagonal diretion, both of the parts number 6 and 7 start moving around their own axis. This is how the light breaking works. Both part 6 and 7 have holes in the big circle which let through light and also block them. This is how the microchip on the inside of the mouse is able to read how far and in what direction the mouse is moving or has been moved. There are however a couple of problems with this kind of mouse. First off it's not dirt proof which could lead to the holes in the parts number 6 and 7 being filled with dirt, leading to choppy movements of the mouse. The other one is that you need either a special mouse mat or a very flat surface otherwise the ball won't roll.
How Optical Mice Work
The optical mouse works by shining a light down on the desk using a LED. The light produced form the LED shines down onto the desk and the desk reflects it back up to the mouse, into a photocell. The photocell has a built in lens that magnifies the reflected light, that way the chip inside the mouse is able to read the movements you make with the mouse more precisely. By moving the mouse around the light reflections change and that is how the chip is able to figure out where you hand is moving the mouse. Most optical mice have a wheel in the front middle so you're able to scroll through websites much faster and you're also able to push it in, like a button. This wheel basically replaces the middle button on a conventional ball mouse. The one drawback this kind of mouse has is that if the lens inside the photocell is dirty the chip might not be able to read the reflections that well and it might hinder how the mouse moves on screen.
The Invention Of The Touchpad
A touch pad is a device that's used for controlling the input position of a computer screen. It is usually made to work seamlessly with desktop computers. The very first commercially available touch pad was created by George E. Gerpheide in 1988. The top layer of the touch pad contains the material that you touch. Beneath it is a circuit board that contains the rows and layers of electrodes that are connected to a grid. When the finger touches the grid, the current is interrupted, and the circuit board interprets the interruption. This interruption would be read by a microchip and then the microchip would know where to move the onscreen mouse to.
Link with Robot
The link between the mouse and my robot is hard to make. They're both completely different things however they have some things in common. Both are very easy to use, a standard mouse just has 2 buttons and one scroll wheel, which is very easy to understand. My robot just has one button to turn it on and off again which is also very easy to understand. Both my robot and the mouse have had some upgrades with time, like how the mouse went from a ball mouse to infrared / optical and my robot went from not working to working. As a comparison i would like to say that my robot glides over the battlefield like a mouse glides over a mousemat. As for my other robot (which i don't have a picture of), it was also very easy to use like the mouse. A patient would press the button for help and a doctor or nurse would hear a sound and see red lights, the doctor or nurse would then press a button on their side so the patient would know someone is coming to help. As for a link i would say that the mouse and help button are both a revolutionary invention to help people with daily life.