The plural for the small rodent is always 'mice' in modern usage. The popularity of wireless mice without cords makes the resemblance less obvious.Īccording to Roger Bates, a hardware designer under English, the term also came about because the cursor on the screen was for some unknown reason referred to as 'CAT' and was seen by the team as if it would be chasing the new desktop device.

The earliest known written use of the term mouse in reference to a computer pointing device is in Bill English's July 1965 publication, 'Computer-Aided Display Control', likely originating from its resemblance to the shape and size of a mouse, a rodent, with the cord resembling its tail. Mice often also feature other elements, such as touch surfaces and scroll wheels, which enable additional control and dimensional input.Ī computer mouse is named for its resemblance to the rodent. In addition to moving a cursor, computer mice have one or more buttons to allow operations such as selection of a menu item on a display. Though originally all mice were connected to a computer by a cable, some modern mice are cordless, relying on short-range radio communication with the connected system. Most modern mice use optical sensors that have no moving parts. Later, the standard design shifted to utilise a ball rolling on a surface to detect motion. Mice originally used two separate wheels to track movement across a surface one in the X-dimension, and one in the Y. The first public demonstration of a mouse controlling a computer system was in 1968. This motion is typically translated into the motion of a pointer on a display, which allows a smooth control of the graphical user interface of a computer. A computer mouse (plural mice, sometimes mouses) is a hand-held pointing device that detects two-dimensional motion relative to a surface.

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