By 1973, Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center, or PARC, develop the Alto personal computer. The wheels on the mouse's undercarriage had been replaced by a single, free-rolling ball; and two more buttons (for a total of three) had been added to the top. The device was called both a mouse and a pointing device, and Xerox combined it with its Alto computer, one of the first personal computers. The Alto had a graphical user interface (GUI); that is, the user pointed to icons, or picture symbols, and lists of operations called menus and clicked on them to cause the computer to open a file, print, and perform other functions. This method of operating the computer was later adapted by Macintosh and Windows operating systems.

Apple Computer released the first commercial computer that used a mouse in 1983 with the Apple Lisa. However, this first try was a little too expensive for most businesses, and Apple's second try, 1984's Macintosh, was far more successful (and much cheaper). It showed the world that the mouse could be used to make computing easier for the general public. Microsoft, the maker of MS-DOS, the dominant operating system for PC's, would follow up with its own GUI the next year.

Improvements were added to make sensors less prone to collecting dust, to make scrolling easier through an added wheel on the top, and to make the mouse cordless by using radio-frequency signals (borrowed from garage door openers) or infrared signals (adapted from television or remote controls). Today, practically every desktop computer made uses a mouse.

Douglas Engelbart invented or contributed to several interactive, user-friendly devices: the computer mouse, windows, computer video teleconferencing, hypermedia, groupware, email, the Internet and more.

In 1964, the first prototype computer mouse was made to use with a graphical user interface (GUI), ‘windows’. Engelbart received a patent for the wooden shell with two metal wheels (computer mouse U.S. Patent # 3,541,541) in 1970, describing it in the patent application as an “X-Y position indicator for a display system.” It was nicknamed the mouse because the tail came out the end.

Douglas Engelbart was awarded the 1997 Lemelson-MIT Prize of $500,000, the world's largest single prize for invention and innovation. In 1998, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

Ver: Computer mouse history

The mouse is an important element of the graphical user interfaces (GUI) systems. It was invented by Doug Engelbart and presented at the Fall Joint Computer Conference held in San Francisco in 1968. Complex mouse gestures have been developped by software designers and the mouse has been enhanced with additionnal buttons and wheels to suit user’s needs.

Mice connect to computers depending the type of connector they need:
Serial mice connect directly to an RS-232C serial port or a PS/2 port. This is the simplest type of connection. PS/2 mice connect to a PS/2 port. USB mice use one of the USB ports in your computer and Cordless mice aren’t physically connected at all. They eliminate the cord and rely on infrared or radio waves to communicate with the computer.

There are three basic types of mice:
1. mechanical: Has a rubber or metal ball on its underside that can roll in all directions. Mechanical sensors within the mouse detect the direction the ball is rolling and move the screen pointer accordingly.
2. optomechanical: Same as a mechanical mouse, but uses optical sensors to detect motion of the ball.
3. optical: Uses a laser to detect the mouse’s movement. You must move the mouse along a special mat with a grid so that the optical mechanism has a frame of reference. Optical mice have no mechanical moving parts. They respond more quickly and precisely than mechanical and optomechanical mice, but they are also more expensive.