Saturday, 13 July 2013
Douglas Engelbart passed away in his home in Atherton, California on Tuesday night. The computer visionary had won numerous awards for his invention of the computer mouse and graphical user interface. He received the Turing Award and Lemelson-MIT Prize in 1997 and the National Medal of Technology in 2000.
Engelbart unveiled the prototype of the
computer mouse in December 1968. The device originally looked like a
clunky wooden box with two rolling disks and a tiny red button and was
called an “X-Y position indicator for a display system”. He was the
first person to exhibit a video conference with a colleague 50
kilometers away in the same conference. On Engelbart’s death, Curtis R. Carlson, the CEO of SRI International,
said: “Engelbart brought tremendous value to society. We will miss his
genius, warmth and charm. Doug's legacy is immense. Anyone in the world
who uses a mouse or enjoys the productive benefits of a personal
computer is indebted to him."
