William Kirk English (January 27, 1929July 26, 2020) was an American

computer engineer Computer engineering (CE, CoE, or CpE) is a branch of engineering specialized in developing computer hardware and software. It integrates several fields of electrical engineering, electronics engineering and computer science. Computer engine ...

who contributed to the development of the

computer mouse A computer mouse (plural mice; also mouses) is a hand-held pointing device that detects Plane (mathematics), two-dimensional motion relative to a surface. This motion is typically translated into the motion of the Cursor (user interface)#Po ...

while working for

Douglas Engelbart Douglas Carl Engelbart (January 30, 1925 – July 2, 2013) was an American engineer, inventor, and a pioneer in many aspects of computer science. He is best known for his work on founding the field of human–computer interaction, particularly ...

SRI International SRI International (SRI) is a nonprofit organization, nonprofit scientific research, scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California, United States. It was established in 1946 by trustees of Stanford Univer ...

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 ...

. He would later work for

Xerox PARC Future Concepts division (formerly Palo Alto Research Center, PARC and Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. It was founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, as a div ...

and

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

Early life

English was born on January 27, 1929, in Lexington,

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

. 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 that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

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 The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a Public University, public Land-grant University, land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky, United States. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical ...

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 SRI International (SRI) is a nonprofit organization, nonprofit scientific research, scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California, United States. It was established in 1946 by trustees of Stanford Univer ...

in the 1960s to work on magnets, and built one of the first all-magnetic arithmetic units with Hewitt Crane. In 1964, he was the first person to join Douglas Engelbart's lab, the

He and Douglas Engelbart share credit for creating the first

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 The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

, 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 "The Mother of All Demos" was a landmark computer demonstration, named retroactively, of developments by Stanford Research Institute's Augmentation Research Center. It was presented at the Association for Computing Machinery / Institute of Ele ...

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 to the host computer at SRI away, and also transmitted audio and video between the locations. He left SRI in 1971 and went to

, 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 Telefunken was a German radio and television producer, founded in Berlin in 1903 as a joint venture between Siemens & Halske and the ''AEG (German company), Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft'' (AEG) ("General electricity company"). Prior to ...

, Germany, and was offered since 1968 as input device for their computers. In 1989, he went to work for

on internationalization efforts. English died of respiratory failure in

San Rafael, California San Rafael ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for "Raphael (archangel), St. Raphael", ) is a city in and the county seat of Marin County, California, United States. The city is located in the North Bay (San Francisco Bay Area), North Bay region of th ...

, 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 Engineers from Kentucky