Mouse inventor Douglas Engelbert dies at 88
COMPUTER mouse inventor Douglas Engelbart has died aged 88
The American technology expert invented the device early in his career in the 1960s and only earned £33,000 for his creation.
The mouse did not become commercially available until 1984 with the release of Apple’s revolutionary Macintosh computer.
The technology passed into the public domain in 1987, preventing him from collecting royalties.
At least one billion have been sold since the 1980s.
Marc Weber, founder of the internet history program at the Computer History Museum in California, where Engelbart had been a fellow since 2005, said: “There are only a handful of people who were as influential. He had a complete vision of what computers could become at a very early stage.”