Why is the mouse cursor tilted slightly rather than straight?

ByRufus Gefangenen

"Why is the north above the map"Why do people kissThere are times when you doubt about casual things in your usual life. Someone who wondered if "the cursor of the mouse displayed on the screen of the PC faces obliquely instead of straight"User Experience Stack ExchangeI got an answer that I consented unintentionally.

Interaction design - Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight? - User Experience Stack Exchange
http://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/52336/why-is-the-mouse-cursor-slightly-tilted-and-not-straight

(PDF file) VLSI-81-1_The_Optical_Mouse.pdf
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/xerox/parc/techReports/VLSI-81-1_The_Optical_Mouse.pdf

A History of the GUI | Ars Technica
http://arstechnica.com/features/2005/05/gui/

American inventorDouglas · EngelbartThe mouse invented by Mr. was introduced in San Francisco in 1968 "Joint Computer ConferenceIt was the first time to show off that figure. Three buttons are mounted on the mouse that was announced at that time, but the shape that fits the hand is not different from the current one.


Simultaneously with the development of the mouse, a cursor for displaying the movement of the mouse on the screen is also invented. The mouse cursor invented by Engelbart was in the shape of an arrow pointing straight upwards, and its size was exactly the same as the character displayed on the display.


Five years after the invention of the mouse in 1973,XeroxofPalo Alto Research CentersoThe Xerox AltoWill be developed. The Xerox AltobitmapCombined with a computer prototype equipped with the standard as the mouse combines the mouse invented by Engelbart.


The Xerox Alto's display is equipped with a bitmap, the resolution is low, it turns out that it is practically impossible to display the "mouse cursor that faced straight up" invented by Engelbart. I figured out that it was a mouse cursor diagonally inclined 45 degrees, it was easier to identify on the display than the one of Engelbert, and it was easy to display.

Although the resolution of the display has dramatically increased since The Xerox Alto appeared, the shape of the mouse cursor does not change and faces obliquely upward. For users who use PC every day, the shape of the mouse cursor is trivial, but there were reasons that were unique at the time of development to reach that shape.