Douglas Engelbart

Douglas Engelbart was born on January 30, 1925 in Oregon, United States. He is the inventor of the computer mouse when in use today. Douglas was the youngest of three siblings of children the couple Carl Louis Engelbart and Gladys Charlotte Amelia Munson Engelbart. After graduating from high school Douglas entered the Oregon State University. However, in the second World War, he entered the navy and became a radar technician in the Philippines for two years. At that time, Douglas read books that inspire him: As We May Think, Vannevar Bush's book. He then returned to Oregon State University and completed her undergraduate major in electrical engineering in 1948.

In addition, he also completed an undergraduate at the University of California Berkeley, and received a B. Eng in 1952, then earned his Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science (EECS - Electrical Engineering and Computer Science) 3 years later. After completing his doctoral studies, Douglas lives in Berkeley to teach. But it only lasted one year. Douglas then plan the company Digital Techniques. The company aims to commercialize the results of his doctoral work in the field of storage device (storage device). However, the company was only last year, and Douglas was moved to the Stanford Research Institute (SRI).

In SRI, Douglas patented the twelve patents on behalf of himself. Douglas filed a proposal to create a project entitled "Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framwork". This project had received funding from ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency), the United States government agency under the Department of Defense aimed at the development of new technologies for military purposes. With the funds, Douglas set up his own lab at SRI one which he named ARC (Augmentation Research Center).

At that time, there have been some kind of tool that can move their pointer on the screen, like a light pen (light pen) and the joystick. However, Engelbart was not satisfied with these tools. He tries to map the characteristics of a pointing device that has been around and seen a device that does not exist in the map, the mouse. The invention also has been born. Douglas did not remember who gave the name of the mouse on the creation tools. Clearly, a tool with a cable that extends from the back it does look like rats and every person in the laboratory where Douglas worked the tool called a mouse.

In 1967, Douglas created the goods that he


described as a "XY Position Indicator for a Display System". Goods is then given the name of the mouse. Douglas developed this with colleagues, Bill English. Bill was working on the hardware part of this mouse. Although the mouse invented by Douglas, but he never received royalties from his invention. At an interview, Douglas said that "SRI has a patent, but they do not know the value of these goods. A few years later they melisensikannya to Apple for 40,000 dollars. "


Once submitted to the ARC leadership Bertram Raphael and ownership transferred to the company that called Tymshare, then McDonnell Douglas, Douglas was retired in 1986. After retiring, with his daughter Christian Engelbert, Douglas founded the Bootstrap Institute with funds that are not too large and organized three half-day management seminar at Stanford University in the year 1989-2000 which seems to have inspired many seminar participants.

Now, Mr. Douglas is Emeritus at Douglas Engelbart Institute. While her daughter's Executive Director. In 2005, Douglas received research grants from the Natioanl Science Foundation for open source projects that are named HyperScope. On December 9, 2008, Douglas was awarded the honor at the "Mother of All Demos" is the 40th, the activities created by SRI International.


Douglas Engelbart's name is not very well known than Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, Douglas. In fact, both the PC (personal computer) - that uses Windows-or Apple Macintosh, use the same device is made by Douglas. Mouse was created as a byproduct of finding other, more ambitious projects, augmenting human intellect, which projects to enhance human intellectual abilities with the help of computers. In that project, consider a tool that can facilitate human interaction with computers through a tool that can move their pointer along the screen. With these tools are expected interaction between humans and computers become more natural, so the computer can be used optimally to solve human problems.