Dr. Douglas C. Engelbart and his team at SRI International created many of the concepts and tools that set the global computer revolution in motion.

The first computer mouse was one of many breakthrough innovations originating at SRI. Doug Engelbart conceived of the mouse in the early 1960s while exploring the interactions between humans and computers. Bill English, then the chief engineer at SRI, built the first prototype in 1964. A replica of the original computer mouse -- a carved block of wood with a single red button -- is on display in SRI's lobby. Designs with multiple buttons followed soon. A single wheel or a pair of wheels was used to translate the motion of the mouse into cursor movement on the screen. Doug Engelbart was the inventor on the basic patent for what was then called the "X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System." For Doug, the mouse was one part of a much larger technological system whose purpose was to facilitate organizational learning and global online collaboration.

When Doug Engelbart was a graduate student in electrical engineering, he began to imagine ways in which all sorts of information could be displayed on the screens of cathode ray tubes, and he dreamed of "flying" through a variety of information spaces. In early 1959, he pursued his visionary ideas further into the formulation of a theoretical framework for the co-evolution of human skills, knowledge, and organizations. At the heart of his vision was the computer as an extension of human communication capabilities and a resource for the augmentation of human intellect.

By 1968, Doug Engelbart had formed and was directing SRI's Augmentation Research Center. With this group of young computer scientists and electrical engineers, he staged a 90-minute public multimedia demonstration at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco. It was the world debut of personal computing when a computer mouse controlled a networked computer system to demonstrate hypertext linking, real-time text editing, multiple windows with flexible view control, cathode display tubes, and shared-screen teleconferencing. Video clips of the demonstration are available on the MouseSite.

In 2000, President Bill Clinton honored Doug Engelbart with the National Medal of Technology. The Medal is the nation's highest technology honor, recognizing innovators who have made lasting contributions to enhancing America's competitiveness and standard of living and whose solid science has resulted in commercially successful products and services.