Computer Mouse Inventor Dies

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An April 9, 1997 photo of Doug Engelbart, inventor of the computer mouse and winner of the half-million dollar 1997 Lemelson-MIT prize, posing with the computer mouse he designed, in New York.
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An April 9, 1997 photo of Doug Engelbart, inventor of the computer mouse and winner of the half-million dollar 1997 Lemelson-MIT prize, posing with the computer mouse he designed, in New York.

U.S. technology visionary Douglas Engelbart, who revolutionized computing with the invention of the mouse, has died at the age of 88.

Engelbart first demonstrated his invention, along with video teleconferencing, at a computer conference in San Francisco in 1968, where other experts gave him a standing ovation. Two years later, he won a patent on the mouse, a wood box with two metal wheels in its earliest design.

While the computer mouse is now a fixture in offices and many homes throughout the world, it did not become commercially available until 1984 with the introduction of Apple’s Macintosh computer.

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During his career, Engelbart won 20 other patents, and played a key role in the development of the Internet, word processing and navigating online through links to other Internet sites.

Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.

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