What if the mouse was never designed?

The Mouse was based on Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. When Walt and Ub Iwerks were dismissed by Universal, the company kept the character (and kept on doing Oswald cartoons until 1943).

If there had been a legal kerfuffle and the guys at Universal had decided "oh let them keep the IP rights, they'll go broke soon enough", then Walt and Ub and the gang might not have decided to do Their Own Version . . .

Oh, you mean a computer mouse!

Never mind.

:(

PS: Disney acquired the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in 2006.
 
The Mouse was based on Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. When Walt and Ub Iwerks were dismissed by Universal, the company kept the character (and kept on doing Oswald cartoons until 1943).

If there had been a legal kerfuffle and the guys at Universal had decided "oh let them keep the IP rights, they'll go broke soon enough", then Walt and Ub and the gang might not have decided to do Their Own Version . . .

Oh, you mean a computer mouse!

Never mind.

:(

PS: Disney acquired the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in 2006.

Haha, that was interesting though!
 
I just think someone else will invent it at a later day.

You can get away without it in the days before GUI, but you can't have productivity in graphic design using Logo, you need a GUI. And for a GUI... well, you don't need a mouse per se. You could have a graphics tablet, a trackball (which precedes the mouse, so I guess the OP will also want to remove that), joysticks or force people to move the cursor with the arrow keys. But at some point, someone, somewhere, is going to invent the mouse.

However, if the mouse isn't invented, maybe the whole concept of a WIMP GUI isn't developed, so the mouse isn't invented (and adopted) until computers are powerful enough to be used for graphic design, so we're talking about the late '80s/early '90s. That means at least billions are "lost" in the global economy due the reduced productivity and GUI OS are delayed for years.

Then again, a quick reading of the wikipedia article indicates the trackball was initially developed to manage radar information, so if the defense industry also demands something like a mouse, it may not be delayed that much.
 
Lightpen
IBM A/N FSQ-7 1958

IBM-SAGE-computer.gif
 
We don't suffer from wrist carpal system excessively...

We suffer from thumb and triggerfinger -itis...:D;):p
 
As a lad in the 1970s and 1980s, my classroom had these ICON computers with track balls.

BurroughsIconb.jpg


Without the mouse, we'd likely end up here.

Trackball-Kensington-ExpertMouse5.jpg


Interestingly, the military makes good use of the track ball vs. the mouse.
 
Trackballs are pretty neat, once you get used to them. And I don't see anything stopping joysticks being used as a common input.... that is, after all, basically what the nub in the middle of the keyboard of some laptops is.

Both are reasonably intuitive, and don't have the problem the mouse has of needing twenty acres of desk space.
 
We could have trackballs, those thingies at the centre of some laptop keyboards, or maybe even track pads (although that is unlikely). Joysticks would work too.

I think trackballs are the most likely of these things.
 
trackball...

german stile by Telefunken

320px-Telefunken_Rollkugel_RKS_100-86.jpg
First produced in 1968, thus predating the Xerox offering.

Seriously, it would have delay things by no more than half-a-decade, because if it wasn't Xerox, someone else would have bundled it in sooner or later, that or it becomes one of the two big control devices alongside trackballs.
 
If we end up using trackballs someone is going to get the idea to simply turn the trackball upside down so we'd end up with a mouse again. :D They can exist next to each other fairly well if the trackball has 10 years headstart but the utility of a mouse is going to give it enough followers.

Then comes the laser sensor and the choice between a trackball you have to clean and a laser sensor mouse you dont have to clean becomse clearer.
 
PS: Disney acquired the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in 2006.

Yeah, and now they sell a ton of Oswald stuff at Disney World.
 
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