Re: Computing Editorial (please read)

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

Paul Schlyter wrote:

>In article <3E2DEDE7.93DF0FA1@ev1.net>,
>Charles Richmond  <richmond@ev1.net> wrote:
> 
>> ...and Xerox PARC was "borrowing" from Doug Englebart's "Mother of All
>Demos".
>> After all, Englebart invented the computer mouse and patented it in 1970.
> 
>Nah -- the computer mouse, as well as computer color graphics, was
>invented by a Swede named Hakan Lans:
> 
>http://hem.netlink.se/~sfs1434/hakan_lanseng.htm
>http://dmoz.org/Computers/History/Pioneers/desc.html

Surely you jest, Paul.

The color graphics patent was filed January 9, 1979, long after people were
routinely displaying color graphics generated by computers, and even using
"frame buffers", which this patent seems to claim.

Clearly this patent is invalid due to prior art.

In the case of the mouse, it looks like another case of nearly simultaneous
invention, though Hakan Lans seems to have envisioned it more as a tool
for entering graphical data (drawing), while Doug Englebart clearly saw it
primarily as a tool for pointing and selecting (since his was a text-only
system).

I think you'd agree that the application of the modern mouse is much
closer to what Englebart envisioned.

-michael

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