William English, the co-inventor of the mouse, died

Seven years later Doug Engelbart also disappears the second "dad" of one of the most used tech objects

(photo: Marcin Wichary uploaded by Edward - CC BY 2.0) William English died at the age of 91 at due to respiratory problems on July 26, but the news reached the international audience only a few days later: known as Bill, this computer engineer went down in history as one of the two inventors of the mouse, the screen pointing device used throughout the world.

Bill was the person who made the first mouse model together with his colleague Doug Engelbart, who passed away in July 2013 at 88 years of age, who was the creator of the project started over the years '60 at the Stanford Research Institute Augmentation Research Center. If Engelbart was more devoted to creativity, English made up the concrete part of the duo.

The first example of mouse was made of wood with two metal wheels and its first name had been xy position indicator for display. because it allowed you to move a pointer over an on-screen interface. A real bridge between the real and the virtual world, with the hand movements that were reproduced on the monitor.

The first mouse invented by Douglas Engelbert in 1964 consisted of a hard wooden shell and two clunky metal wheels . pic.twitter.com/zTF0TH8PNu

- Silver Lining (@silverliningUK) March 18, 2016



The nickname mouse or mouse was given by Engelbart, inspired by the cable that he remembered the little rodent's tail and the fact that the cursor on the monitor (called Cat, cat) seemed to be constantly chasing him.

William English was part of the group of visionaries who in 1968 participated in the initiative The Mother of All Demos (video), predating a large proportion of the technological innovations, especially information technology that have characterized the century, from the interfaces to the hyperlinks in the base of the web, the storage of the data and information tools to work in digital mode and the video calls.

the patent for The mouse arrived on the 21st of June 1967 , but in 1968, during the public concert at the Joint Computer Conference at the Convention Center in San Francisco, Steve Jobs remarked with great interest to the project and the proposed (read: took inspiration from the idea) with its Xerox Star, which was the first computer of the history with the mouse.

Browse the gallery From the years ’60, the mice have taken giant steps up to the most current, powerful, fast and precise for gaming. Here above you will find the ten mouse the strangest ever made.