Why the mouse cursor is tilted by 45 °? Bashny.Net

Site visitor questions and answers StackExchange asked a seemingly silly question: why all cursors on all operating systems a little bit "curves", ie have a certain slope, but do not point straight? 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 the arrow cursor up as the most logical allotment option (see. Screenshot at the top).
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 document 1981, which lists the characteristics of XEROX PARC, the first ever computer with a graphical user interface.
In the design of this machine it is found that due to the low resolution display of the time can not be created from normal pixels the vertical cursor is small in size. It was decided not to increase the size of the pointer, and instead turn it slightly to one face is vertical, and the other bent at 45 °.



Image of documentation Palo Alto Research Center
Have passed more than 30 years, there were high-resolution display, but the tradition of portraying the cursor tilted by 45 ° preserved.

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Source: habrahabr.ru