Doug Engelbart, a computer science visionary who was credited with inventing the mouse, the now-ubiquitous device that first allowed people to navigate virtual desktops with clicks and taps, died Tuesday at his home in Atherton, California. He was 88.
The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, where he had been a fellow since 2005, confirmed the death.
At a time when computers were the size of Buicks and ran on punch cards, Engelbart led a team of researchers who conceived seminal ideas that helped build the modern computer industry and allowed the machines to become a staple of work and home life. "With his help, the computer has become a friendly servant rather than a stern taskmaster," the noted economist Lester Thurow said in 1997.