Happy Birthday, Mouse!

Today, the mouse - the human interface device, not the furry rodent - turns 40 years old.  Yes, the mouse has existed that long, longer, in fact, than the ARPAnet/Internet.

The original mouse was made of wood and used two wheels to slide and roll along a surface, and was unveiled at the Fall Joint Computer Conference on December 9, 1968. 

Later, it evolved into the mouse we're all used to, the one with a ball that rolls.  Not much of an evolution, really - the wheels are just inside of the device and are turned by the ball.  More recently, optical mice have been developed which measure their movement based on scanning the surface they're moved against.

But without that original, wood and wire creature, who knows how we'd interact with computers?  Sure, there's always the keyboard.  But how to drag and drop?  How to point and click?  Double-click?  Right-click?  Would we all be using joysticks?  Touchpads?  Pointing sticks?  Tablets?  It baffles the mind to imagine...

So let us raise a virtual cocktail glass in salute to that venerable little piece of machinery we take for granted and use every day to click and drag and drop our way through our cyber-lives.

Happy 40th birthday, Mouse, dear old friend.