Douglas Engelbart, the scientist who created the computer mouse, died Tuesday at the age of 88.
Engelbart set the computing world ablaze after conducting the "mother of all demos" in 1968, showing off in just over an hour interactive computing, video conferencing, text editing, hypertext and window displays.
A three-buttoned mouse, cooked up four years before, was used to control the computer’s cursor, bringing to public light a device that would eventually squeak next to every PC.
Image credit: The New York Times
Engelbart also had an influence on ARPAnet, the forbearer to the internet as we know it. oNLine System, or NLS, was developed to allow scientists to seamlessly exchange information and create and access documents stored in an electronic library, and it would become the application through which ARPAnet was formed.
President Bill Clinton would award Engelbart the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 2000.
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