KEY POINTS:
The average pet mouse's life expectancy may be 3 to 5 years, but that's peanuts compared to the computer mouse, which just turned 40 and looks set to continue to age gracefully - even though many speculate that it will be exterminated by emerging technologies.
Originally designed in 1968 by a bunch of geeks at the Stanford Research Institute who were looking for an easier way to drive their computers, the original mouse bore more of a resemblance to a rat - a bulky wooden block mounted on wheels, with its tail (the long cable connecting it to the PC) trailing out its rump. Based on its resemblance to a rodent, it was named the mouse.
The humble mouse remained more of a curiosity until it was further developed by Xerox in the 1970s, who launched the first commercial computer mouse in 1981 with the Xerox 8010 Star computer system.
Prior to 0BM (before mouse), most geeks made do simply by clacking away on qwerty keyboards to drive their computers. Needless to say, from an ergonomic perspective this wasn't a whole bunch of fun.
It wasn't until the mouse gained greater commercial acceptance when Apple launched the Mac back in 1984 that personal computing began to gain acceptance beyond accountants and geeks.
Since then, the mouse has become the default method most of us have used to work with our computers for the last 20 years.
Over the last two decades the humble mouse has also continued to evolve at a lightening fast pace. Where the original Stanford Institute mouse had a single button, tangly cable and used mechanical wheels to get about, today's mice have five or more buttons which are their only moving parts.
The Darwinian progress of the mouse hasn't stopped there either. Wheels have been replaced by a significantly more accurate digital optical mechanism, and its tail-like cable connection to the PC has been replaced with tangle-free wireless connectivity.
Evolution aside, the future looks like less of a sure-fire bet for the mouse in that gesture controlled touch-screens from killer gadgets like Apple's iPod Touch or motion sensors from Nintendo's Wii are rapidly gaining acceptance.
As these mousy alternatives gain wider acceptance and voice recognition technologies continue to improve, many industry pundits believe that the number of the longest living rodent in history may soon be up.
