Whether you’re a Windows, Linux, or MacOS user, you’re probably pretty used to manipulate the mouse with which to move the cursor, but have you ever wondered why the cursor is always slightly tilted? Moreover, it’s always the same way: to the left if you look from bottom to top. In this article, we will tell you why the mouse cursor is it tilted this way, and why will it continue to be so for the remains.
We’re dealing with one of those computing legacies that go back many, many years and everything tends to continue the same until the end of time, like the QWERTY layout on keyboards.
The History of the Mouse Cursor
In the beginning of time, when the precursor mouse we use today was invented, the cursor was a simple vertical arrow. We’re talking about the days of Douglas Engelbart, a Xerox engineer and inventor of the mouse (and its cursor, of course) in 1981. But of course, it didn’t take long for them to realize that using of a fully vertical arrow had some drawbacks for orientation and selecting exactly what they were trying to point the mouse at…
When the first mouse-based GUI machine was built, the Xerox Parc, they made the decision to tilt the cursor slightly to the left and make it an arrow instead of just a line, because they realized that with the resolution that the monitors had at that time, it was quite difficult to distinguish this vertical line and especially to differentiate it from the cursor which, even today, marks where we are going in a text.
In the beginning the mouse arrow was inclined at exactly 45 degrees from the vertical, but today the design has evolved and, depending on the operating system and even its version, we can find inclinations or others. .. but always with the common denominator: it is slightly tilted to the left.
In any case, what we have told you is nothing more than a hypothesis that has been accepted by the community, since in reality the exact reason why this decision was made to tilt the mouse arrow one side is not known. . What is certain is that it all makes sense… can you imagine that the mouse cursor was a simple vertical line? It really would be a lot harder to even find where it is on the screen, especially with the high resolutions of today’s monitors.
Finally, if curiosity has pushed you to read this article to the end, you may also be wondering why the cursor leans to the left and not the other way around… it’s not sure either, but it’s It’s also supposed to be by inheritance, since its inventor was right-handed (and a large percentage of the population, in fact), and that would be the natural posture of the right hand, no more and no less.
