One of the pioneers of the modern computer system user interface has died: the New York Times reports that William “Bill” English died on July 26th from breathing failure at the age of 91. Along With Douglas Englebart at the Stanford Research Institute, English assisted develop the first computer mouse and created a 1968 “Mother of All Demos” that outlined lots of concepts that would come to PCs over the years, such as visual user interfaces, online text editing, video calls and hypertext links.
While Englebart was thought about the visionary, English was among the only people who truly comprehended the ideas and had the talent to bring them to fruition. He developed the mouse after Englebart drew a sketch of it. While Englebart was demonstrating the concepts at that 1968 occasion, English was managing things behind the scenes.
Computer mouse co-inventor William English dies at 91 – Engadget
