Inventor of the Week Archive for a different Invention or
Inventor The computer mouse Years before personal computers and
desktop information processing became commonplace or even
practicable, Douglas Carl Engelbart had invented a number of
interactive, user-friendly information access systems that we
take for granted today: the computer mouse, windows, shared-
screen teleconferencing, hypermedia, groupware, and more Born in
1925, Engelbart grew up during the Great Depression near
Portland, Oregon. He finished high school in 1942, and then
studied electrical engineering at Oregon State University.
During World War II, he took a break from his studies to serve
in the Navy, which sent him to the Philippines for two years as
an electronic/radar technician. In 1948 he received his B.S.
degree in electrical engineering and went to work for NACA Ames
Laboratory (forerunner of NASA). He then applied to the graduate
program in electrical engineering at the University of
California, Berkeley and obtained his Ph.D. in 1