A hardware input device that was invented by Douglas Engelbart in 1963 while working at Xerox PARC, who at the time was working at the Stanford Research Institute, which was a think tank sponsored by Stanford University. The mouse allows an individual to control a pointer in a graphical user interface (GUI). Utilizing a mouse a user has the ability to perform various functions such as opening a program or file and does not require the user to memorize commands, like those used in a text-based command line environment such as MS-DOS. In the picture to the right, is a picture of a Microsoft IntelliMouse and is an example of what a computer mouse may look like.
The Mouse was originally referred to as an X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System. Xerox later applied the mouse to its revolutionary Alto computer system in 1973. However, because of Alto's unfortunate success, it was first widely used in the Apple Lisa computer. Today, a pointing device is found on virtually every computer.