My first search for the term "computer mouse" was in the New York Times. There, it was used first by Erik Sandberg-Diment in 1987, in an article entitled On Plato, Caves, and Spelunking, in which he discusses his search for a useful word processor. "Computer mouse" is mentioned because its inventor, Douglas Englebart, was working on a project related to hypertext and data organization that interested Sandberg-Diment for some reason. In the Chicago Tribune, the term first appeared in an even stranger context in 1989: an article about gardening. It described how a landscaper used the mouse to design gardens, which was probably an extremely novel idea at the time. Similarly, the term was first used in the LA Times in 1989 to talk about the process of movie coloring using a mouse to draw in boxes of color. From these two examples, we can see how useful and revolutionary the mouse was even from its earliest mentions.
On ProQuest, the first use of the term "computer mouse" found was recorded in February of 1985 in an article about the potential of home computer graphics programs. Interestingly, today, many computer artists see the mouse as an inferior tool, and prefer to use a tablet with a stylus for graphic art. I didn't read the whole article, but it's interesting that the usefulness of the mouse was being considered back then given it has now been somewhat replaced. Next, I searched Project MUSE for the term, and found some interesting results. The first recorded use of the term there occurred in 1997, much later than any of the other articles I've found so far. It was in an article about the use of books stored on CD-ROM and the use of this for children, and the "computer mouse" segment of the article was simply mentioning how one navigates through these books. Finally, in the JSTOR database, the earliest use of the term "computer mouse" returned to me was from the index of "Science News" from June 1983, though no actual article from said edition. However, if it was in the index, this means it was mentioned somewhere in there, which makes it the earliest mention I found so far.
In relation to how we use the term today, these articles don't show much variation in the use of the term "computer mouse" from 1983 to now. Of course, now we are a bit less impressed by the use of a mouse, and it might not even be mentioned in articles about computers today. With the rise of the laptop computer and tablets today, I'd imagine the mouse doesn't really get much mention in articles written today, actually. That would be something interesting to look into. Also interesting is the fact that the mouse took so long to get mentioned in both scholarly and journalistic articles, since it was actually invented in 1963, almost 20 years before it gets mentioned in any article I found. Based on some quick Wikipedia (read: lazy) research, I'd imagine this is because the first PC mouse was released in 1983, which would coincide with its mention in "Science News" that I found.
3 comments:
Devlin,
I think the computer mouse was an interesting choice as I think we take for granted the convenience and accessibility it brings. The computer mouse functions as a representation of the modern information society as it assists in Internet navigation.
Your findings were also interesting, especially the one about gardening and the first instances in which people thought of a device to assist in information collection.
Nice job!
Hey Devlin..
Firstly, I find it funny and interesting that you choose the "computer mouse" as your term. When I was thinking of terms, that was actually something that came to my mind too. Well that and keyboard. So I think you made an interesting choice to actually talk about an object that helps assists us in using certain computer technologies.
Where you talk about how people today are less impressed by the use of the mouse, I completely agree. I find it sad that most people take the mouse for granted. I actually prefer to use a mouse as opposed to the touchpad on a laptop, or my finger on a tablet. The mouse just makes things easier to do to me. On a tablet it’s pretty hard trying to click on a little hyperlink, or tab, on a webpage with your finger (or at least I hope this is the same for everyone, my fingers can't be that big).
Ultimately, I think society should give the "computer mouse" a little more appreciation sometimes.
Devlin,
I think that "computer mouse" was a very interesting term to use for this assignment. It is something that just about everyone that has used a computer is familiar with, but is still falling out of popularity as we moves toward other tools such as the touch pads on laptops or the touchscreens of tablets. Perhaps the most interesting thing to note, however, is that initially, a mouse was considered essential to navigation on a computer, but now is seen as more of an option or as something that is used more out of preference. It sort of shows how technology is evolving toward the use of new tools while still providing methods to use some of the older tools for those that prefer them.
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