Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!gatech!ncar!ames!pacbell!att-ih!ihnp4!inuxc!iuvax!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiucdcsp!gillies
From: gillies@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Apple Challenges HP New Wave, MS-Wi
Message-ID: <76000171@uiucdcsp>
Date: 25 Mar 88 06:27:00 GMT
References: <5480@well.UUCP>
Lines: 16
Nf-ID: #R:well.UUCP:5480:uiucdcsp:76000171:000:738
Nf-From: uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu!gillies    Mar 25 00:27:00 1988


No, Xerox did not invent the mouse.

But Xerox research proved that the mouse was superior to a variety of
other pointing devices (such as trackballs, joysticks, screen cursors,
and a peculiar device you held between your knees to operate!)

In the early seventies, one Xerox researcher (name escapes me) set out
to prove the mouse was a piece of junk.  He was convinced that other
means of input were far superior to a mouse.

So he began grabbing people off the street in Palo Alto, and had them
learn to edit using a variety of pointing devices.  Suprisingly,
people who used the mouse learned faster in almost all cases.  And
at the end of the test, people preferred the mouse over the other
forms of input.  He proved himself wrong!