CBS News with Dan Rather http://kpix.cbsnow.com/navbar/home.html The Mouse Turns 30 More Than 500 Million Sold Creator Takes Back Seat SILICON VALLEYWednesday, December 09,1998 - 11:15 PM ET "He's a long distance thinker who has both the soul of an engineerand the spirit of a poet."Paul Saffo, Institute of the Future CBS (CBS) It's now hard to believe,but there was a time whenpeople thought a mouse was just a rodent, reports CBS NewsCorrespondent John Blackstone for Eye on America. "It doesn't look like a mouse at all. It has a ball on thebottom of it and the tail's at the wrong end," says onecyber-child. On Wednesday, the computermouse turned 30, and in SiliconValley, there was a birthdayparty of sorts for the quietengineer who invented it. It was on December 9, 1968, that Doug Englebart firstdemonstrated his mouse at a San Francisco computerconference. "You have a pointing device called a mouse. I don'tknow why we call it a mouse. Sometimes I apologize,"Englebart says in an early promotional segment. Today, some 500 million mice have been sold around the world.Children use it instinctively. It's turned more people into surfersthan any Beach Boys song. Even though Englebart clearly builta better mouse, the world did not beat a path to his door. And in an industry that's made billionaires, Doug Englebartnever got rich. The patent went to his employer. Englebart saysthat never troubled him. "Along the way we needed to have a gadget that wouldbe a better windshield wiper or something but thewhole rest of the expedition had so many other thingsit just wasn't a big deal," says Englebart. Englebart's expedition has been aquest to discover how muchcomputers can do to expandhuman intelligence. "He's a long distancethinker who has both thesoul of an engineer and thespirit of a poet," says PaulSaffo, head of the Institute of theFuture. "Doug's demo was not unlike a flying saucer droppingout of the sky and landing on the White House lawn,"Saffo continues. "It just electrified this industry becauseit showed people the potential of computers that theynever considered." Like using computers for more than number crunching, forexample. Or they could be communications devices -- a futurethat finally seems to have arrived with the Internet. "And everybody thinks hooray, we're here and goodfor you and I'm saying hey, don't cheer all that much,lets get going," says Englebart. What Doug Englebart sees is a world where all humanintelligence is shared collectively, where computers don't justmake our lives easier, but they actually make us smarter. "You're going to be able to fly and manipulate andunderstand things very much faster," says Englebart. Thirty-years ago, along with the mouse, Englebart demonstratedthe chord selector for the other hand that does most of what akeyboard does. Though it opens new possibilities with computers, it nevercaught on. It might have done better had he called it a "cat". On this anniversary, however, Doug Englebart is being hailed asthe man who put a mouse in most every house. Reported by John Blackstone. Copyright 1998 CBS Worldwide Corp. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ont color="#000000">POLITICS