Why the mouse cursor is tilted by 41, 4 °? Bashny.Net

Site visitor questions and answers StackExchange задал seemingly silly question: why all cursors on all operating systems a little "curves", ie they have a certain slope, and do not point directly? In fact, why the cursor is not positioned vertically, because it is most convenient to highlight text and other tasks?





It corresponds to an expert who is familiar with the history of computer technology. He confirms that the inventor of the mouse Douglas Engelbart really portrayed arrow cursor up as the most logical option selection (see. Screenshot above) .

However, the graphical interface of the operating system in practice has implemented the world's first company Xerox, namely - its research unit Palo Alto Research Center. In particular, a cursor is described in документе 1981 , which lists the characteristics of XEROX PARC, the first in the history of the computer with a graphical user interface.

In the design of this machine was found that due to the low resolution display of the time can not be created from the pixels of the normal vertical cursor small. It was decided not to increase the size of the pointer, and instead turn it slightly to one face is vertical, and the second bent by 45 °. Accordingly, the axis of symmetry of the cursor 41 is inclined by about 4 °.



Image of documentation Palo Alto Research Center i>

Passed more than 30 years, there were high-resolution display, but the tradition of portraying the cursor tilted by 41, 4 ° preserved.

Source: habrahabr.ru/post/212939/