the mouse Squeak!

What we need to convey: Powerful, grassroot effort.

Mood: The mood of this one is 'neat'.

Background: Doug's work produced the mouse not as a main project, but in support of his general vision and as a project for NASA.

Interviewee's: Doug.

Visuals: Mouse and competing tech video.

: Doug tells of how the mouse came about: One thing we did with this was I could get a special research grant from NASA we need to have screen selection so we got NASA to set up the research money to test how to get screen selection.

Which way would be best? There were lots of ideas so I said lets experiment. Bill sat up and ran the project, testing various devices. We published a paper on it. One of the first things we did was to run a lot of tests. We got some secretaries who all knew how to type. I looked at all these devices and thought 'gee is that all' so I remembered a sketch I had in a little notebook so I gave it to Bill to build and he did. I couldn't have done it without Bill, but the patent attorney didn't agree with me in wanting bill to share the patent.