It is fairly doubtful that any of us has ever thought about how old that little device we use to surf the web or do anything else with our computers is. Well, today the mouse is 40 years old. And it all started in 1968, when its inventor, Douglas Engelbart demoed the first mouse at the Fall Joint Computer Conference. The resemblance was little, as the 1968’s mouse was a big wooden box.

At the demonstration, Engelbart used the new device to control an on-screen pointer (the cursor, as we know it today) in a similar manner in which we wander around the web today. Considering that, at the time, computers were controlled by inserting perforated papers, a graphical user interface which was controlled in real time was seen as a revolution.

The invention was further improved, until the mouse became to be as we know it today. In 1972, Bill English, the inventor of the Xerox, replaced the metal wheels of Engelbart’s first design with a ball that provided the possibility to move the cursor in any direction. It may seem curious, but eight years later, the optical mouse appeared. In 1991, Logitech launched Mouseman, the first wireless mouse. And the last, but not the least, the scroll wheel was first implemented in 1995 in the Genius EasyMouse.

Hard to believe or not, Douglas Englebart never received any money for his patent. Along with the mouse, other notable contributions of the American inventor include live text editing, integrated text and graphics on a single screen, context-sensitive help and even hyperlinks.