The co-creator of the computer mouse, William English, died at the age of 91, his wife confirmed, BBC reports.
Using the idea of his colleague, Douglas Engelbart, in the beginnings of computer construction as we know it today, the American engineer and inventor made the first mouse in 1963. The first version of the mouse was a wooden block with one button and two wheels that were used for vertical and horizontal movements.
– We worked on editing the text and for that, we needed a tool with which we would choose letters and words – English said two decades ago.
The mouse was used for its prototype computer at the Stanford Institute. The idea was Engelbert’s, but English realized it, while Engelbert described his idea only as a sketch.
A few decades later, computers and mice became commonplace and are now found in virtually every home. English was born in 1929 in Kentucky and studied electrical engineering before joining the U.S. Navy. His colleague Engelbert died in 2013 at the age of 88.
