Humble mouse turns 40 and loses its touch

The original Macintosh personal computer and mouse

The name was never meant to stick. When Doug Engelbart and his team at the Stanford Research Institute in California designed a computer controller encased in a carved-out wooden block, with wheels mounted on the underbelly, one researcher nicknamed it a 'mouse'. 'We thought that when it had escaped out to the world it would have a more dignified name,' Engelbart recalled later. 'But it didn't.'

Its 40th birthday will be celebrated next week

Now the mouse faces growing competition from a new generation of touchscreens

Xerox developed the mouse during the Seventies and launched the first commercial product with the Xerox Star computer system in 1981. It failed to take off, but when Apple bought the mouse patent for its Macintosh in 1984 success was assured, and it was eventually taken up by the mass PC market for use with Microsoft Windows.

'I very much doubt that we'll be using the mouse in 40 years' time

mouse will be left behind