the.com/cursor
the tiny pulse proving the page is listening, even when you have nothing to say
means The blinking marker on a screen that shows where your next keystroke or click will land.
from From Latin 'cursor,' a runner or messenger, from 'currere,' to run — the same root that gives us 'course,' 'current,' and 'cursive.' For centuries it named a sliding part on instruments like the slide rule, the little piece that ran along a scale; computing simply borrowed that running pointer and set it loose on the screen.
- first sketch
- Douglas Engelbart's mouse moved it in 1968
- the wait
- its blink rate is roughly once per second
- hidden tilt
- the classic arrow points slightly left, not straight up
- origin word
- Latin for runner, one who runs
- I-beam logic
- shape changes to slip between text characters
for instance
douglas engelbart's mouse — invented at stanford research institute in 1964, first computer pointing device
xerox alto cursor — first graphical user interface cursor at xerox parc in 1973