Bill English (computer engineer)
| William English | |
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William English in 2008
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| Nationality | American |
| Institutions | SRI International's ARC Xerox PARC Sun Microsystems |
| Known for | Development of the computer mouse |
William "Bill" K. English is a computer engineer who contributed to the development of the computer mouse while working for Douglas Engelbart at SRI International's Augmentation Research Center.[1] He would later work for Xerox PARC and Sun Microsystems.
Career
English joined SRI in the 1960s to work on magnetic drives, and built one of the first all-magnetic arithmetic units with Hewitt Crane.[2] In 1964, he was the first person to join Douglas Engelbart's lab, the Augmentation Research Center.
He and Douglas Engelbart share credit for creating possibly[3] the earliest computer mouse in 1963; English built the initial prototype, and was its first user, based on Engelbart's notes. English led a 1965 project, sponsored by NASA, which evaluated the best way to select a point on a computer display; the mouse was the winner.[2][4] English was also instrumental at The Mother of All Demos in 1968, which showcased the mouse and other technologies developed as part of their NLS (oN-Line System).[2] In particular, English figured out how to connect a terminal in the San Francisco Civic Auditorium to the host computer at SRI, and also transmitted audio and video between the locations.[2]
He left SRI in 1971 and went to Xerox PARC, where he managed the Office Systems Research Group. While working at PARC, English developed a ball mouse, in which a ball replaced the original set of wheels.[1] It worked similar to a moveable ball-based mouse device called Rollkugel, which had been developed by Telefunken, Germany, and was offered since 1968 as input device for their computers.[3][5]
In 1989 he went to work for Sun Microsystems on internationalization efforts.[1][6]
References
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