Timothy B. Lee of The Washington Post reports on the death of Douglas Engelbart, inventor of the mouse, and why it took 30 years for the public to adopt the technology.

“Engelbart created the first mouse prototype in 1963. He showed off the capabilities of his invention, and of software developed to make use of it, in a famous 1968 demonstration.

As amazing as his demo was, it would take almost three decades for the mouse to reach a mass audience. Apple released the first successful mouse-based computer in 1984, but text-based DOS continued to dominate the industry until Microsoft developed tolerable versions of Windows in the early 1990s. The release of Windows 95 in 1995 signaled the final triumph of mouse-based computing.”

The article further explains why many computing technologies take a long time to reach the market.

The Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) released a report called “Continuing Innovation in Information Technology” last year which fully explains the research ecosystem from University Research to Industry Research and Development to Market as reported on the CCCBlog.