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William Kirk English (January 27, 1929July 26, 2020) was an American
computer engineer Computer engineering (CoE or CpE) is a branch of electrical engineering and computer science that integrates several fields of computer science and electronic engineering required to develop computer hardware and software. Computer engineers ...
who contributed to the development of the
computer mouse A computer mouse (plural mice, sometimes mouses) is a hand-held pointing device that detects two-dimensional motion relative to a surface. This motion is typically translated into the motion of a pointer on a display, which allows a smooth ...
while working for
Douglas Engelbart Douglas Carl Engelbart (January 30, 1925 – July 2, 2013) was an American engineer and inventor, and an early computer and Internet pioneer. He is best known for his work on founding the field of human–computer interaction, particularly ...
at SRI International's
Augmentation Research Center SRI International's Augmentation Research Center (ARC) was founded in the 1960s by electrical engineer Douglas Engelbart to develop and experiment with new tools and techniques for collaboration and information processing. The main product to come ...
. He would later work for Xerox PARC and Sun Microsystems.


Early life

English was born on January 27, 1929, in
Lexington Lexington may refer to: Places England * Laxton, Nottinghamshire, formerly Lexington Canada * Lexington, a district in Waterloo, Ontario United States * Lexington, Kentucky, the largest city with this name * Lexington, Massachusetts, the oldes ...
, Kentucky. The only son of Harry English and Caroline (Gray) English, he had two half-brothers from his father's previous marriage. Harry English was an
electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the ...
who managed coal mines and Caroline was a homemaker. William, or Bill as he was known, attended a boarding school in Arizona and then studied electrical engineering at the University of Kentucky.


Career

English served in the US Navy until the late 1950s, including postings in northern California and Japan. He then joined the Stanford Research Institute in the 1960s to work on magnets, and built one of the first all-magnetic arithmetic units with
Hewitt Crane Hewitt D. Crane (1927–2008) was an American engineer best known for his pioneering work at SRI International on ERMA (Electronic Recording Machine, Accounting), for Bank of America, magnetic digital logic, neuristor logic, the development of an ...
. In 1964, he was the first person to join Douglas Engelbart's lab, the
Augmentation Research Center SRI International's Augmentation Research Center (ARC) was founded in the 1960s by electrical engineer Douglas Engelbart to develop and experiment with new tools and techniques for collaboration and information processing. The main product to come ...
. He and Douglas Engelbart share credit for creating the first
computer mouse A computer mouse (plural mice, sometimes mouses) is a hand-held pointing device that detects two-dimensional motion relative to a surface. This motion is typically translated into the motion of a pointer on a display, which allows a smooth ...
in 1963; English built the initial prototype, and was its first user, based on Engelbart's notes. English led a 1965 project, sponsored by NASA, which evaluated the best way to select a point on a computer display; the mouse was the winner. English was also instrumental at The Mother of All Demos in 1968, which showcased the mouse and other technologies developed as part of their NLS (oN-Line System). In particular, English figured out how to connect a terminal in the
San Francisco Civic Auditorium The Bill Graham Civic Auditorium (formerly San Francisco Civic Auditorium) is a multi-purpose arena in San Francisco, California, named after promoter Bill Graham. The arena holds 8,500 people. About the venue The auditorium was designed by re ...
to the host computer at SRI away, and also transmitted audio and video between the locations. He left SRI in 1971 and went to Xerox PARC, where he managed the Office Systems Research Group. While working at PARC, English developed a ball mouse, in which a ball replaced the original set of wheels. It worked similarly to a moveable ball-based mouse device called Rollkugel, which had been developed by Telefunken, Germany, and was offered since 1968 as input device for their computers. In 1989, he went to work for Sun Microsystems on internationalization efforts. English died of respiratory failure in San Rafael, California, on July 26, 2020, aged 91.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:English, Bill 1929 births 2020 deaths Computer hardware engineers 20th-century American engineers 21st-century American engineers Place of birth missing SRI International people Scientists at PARC (company) People from Lexington, Kentucky Scientists from Kentucky