Douglas Engelbart, the man who invented the computer mouse and helped develop many of the basic computing technologies we now take for granted, has died. He was 88.
From Wikipedia:
Douglas Carl Engelbart was an American engineer and inventor, and an early computer and Internet pioneer. He is best known for his work on the challenges of human–computer interaction, particularly while at his Augmentation Research Center Lab in SRI International, resulting in the invention of the computer mouse, and the development of hypertext, networked computers, and precursors to graphical user interfaces.
Engelbart was a committed, vocal proponent of the development and use of computers and computer networks to help cope with the world’s increasingly urgent and complex problems. Engelbart embedded a set of organizing principles in his lab, which he termed "bootstrapping strategy". He designed the strategy to accelerate the rate of innovation of his lab.
Engelbart had four children, Gerda, Diana, Christina and Norman with his first wife Ballard, who died in 1997 after 47 years of marriage. He remarried on January 26, 2008 to writer and producer Karen O'Leary Engelbart. An 85th birthday celebration was held at the Tech Museum of Innovation. Engelbart was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease in 2007 Engelbart died at his home in Atherton, California on July 2, 2013, due to kidney failure. He was 88 and is survived by his wife, four children from his first marriage, and nine grandchildren.
