History of Mouse Cursors

This presentation is on the history of the mouse cursor.


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The mouse was first invented by this man, Douglac C. Engelbart in the late 1960's. Later it became popularized when apple released the Macintosh in 1984.


The arrow and hand are the two dominant mouse cursors


the hand

here you can see the transition from pixelated to smooth as graphics become better over time


mickey mouse style hand history

where did the slightly tilted mickey mouse style cursor originate?


This is HYPERCARD

Hypercard was a program for an old Mac OS which featured the first tilted mickey mouse hand.


mac desktop

The mac desktop brought some of the first realtable computer design to the home user


Walt Disney

Of course we have to give credit where credit is due. Walt Disney created the iconic hand used in OS across the globe


Walt Disney

The Mickey Mouse hand was probably used because its widely recognized by the world


Susan Kare

"The open/grabbing hand cursor, though, is much older, and was designed by Susan Kare (who did most of the icons for the original Mac). MacPaint (on the original 1984 Macintosh) used it as the "pan" icon:"


cursor functions

these icons then changed over time to add things like countdown animation


classic mouse cursors

classic mac cursors


additional mac cursor functions

additional mac cursor functions


Mac OS 10

evolution of Mac OS cursors


tilt design

why is the mouse pointer not straight as depicted here?


tilt design

as you can see when you naturally point to something on a screen with you hand, you don't point it straight forward, you point with your hand tilted.


Mac OS X cursors

Mac vs Windows cursors


Windows cursors

Mac vs Windows cursors


user created cursor packs

cursors can take many forms. users often create packs for download to trick your cursors out.


user created cursor packs

cursors can take many forms. users often create packs for download to trick your cursors out.


user created cursor packs

cursors can take many forms. users often create packs for download to trick your cursors out.