@cloudguy I'm more or less certain that NLS (oNLine System) from Doug Engelbart's ARC (Augmentation Research Center) group at SRI (Stanford Research Institute) already demonstrated copying and pasting of text in the 1968 "Mother of All Demos".
However, it is true, if perhaps lesser known, that Xerox's PARC had a cross-licensing arrangement with SRI and SAIL (Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab).
Lamentably, due to Hollywood BS such as Pirates of Silicon Valley, many (almost all?) in pop culture erroneously attribute inventions to PARC which were previously invented under Engelbart's team and elsewhere.
For example even earlier, Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad (movie clip below from 1962, doctoral thesis completed in 1963) had copying and pasting graphical objects and object inheritance, a clip here narrated by Alan Kay (who was a student of Sutherland and also later worked at PARC):
#NLS#eReader users, has this happened to you? You recently downloaded a book, and have read a significant portion of it. Suddenly, your eReader starts randomly shutting down, even with plenty of power. And/or, it will suddenly freeze up, and then shut down. What to do? DELETETHATBOOK! This happened to me, and I got the idea to delete the book, remembering that it did seem like there was some funkiness with the download. I am sitting here typing this after deleting a book that, apparently, was somehow causing problems with the device. I was afraid I was going to have to send this thing back to the library, but nope, it's working fine now. #Braille#BrailleDisplay#AssistiveTech
sigh broke my NLS EReader today. I guess it was raining harder than I thought this morning, and water got inside the key mechanisms. So random buttons are pressed. So I thought I'd pull it out and let it dry. When I tried to put it back into the case, the case broke. So yeah that's great /s I can break anything, whether it be software or hardware.
My understanding is that Bill English/ARC/The Augment group at SRI (Stanford Research Institute) under Doug(las) Engelbart experimented with various pointing devices, before settling on a 3 button mouse.
Some iterations had fewer (perhaps even no? I don't recall) buttons, some had as many as five buttons I seem to recall?
They even purportedly experimented with a pointing that was driven by knee movements (presumably to allow the hands to be free for other things, though perhaps this may have also been useful for accessibility much in the way there are some alternative pointing devices based upon eye tracking or breathing in more recent decades)
In SRI's studies apparently 3 buttons was considered ideal by most users?
Admittedly, they experimented with a lot of other things when it came to user input too.
For example, instead of relying solely on a QWERTY keyboard layout, NLS used a "chorded" keyboard (image attached).
Similar to playing notes on piano keys, or stenographer keyboards, multiple keys could be held simultaneously, to produce different characters.
Presumably due to the versatility of the chorded keyset (typically used by the left hand) excessive buttons on the mouse (typically used by the right hand) made it such that 3 buttons seemed sufficient?
Interesting hidden menu in the #Humanware#NLS#EReader: Try holding down the up volume and power button until it starts up. It will do that starting up sequence like usual, then go into recovery mode,. Then you see the cells come up as if it powered down. short press the power button, and it goes into startup again. When it starts up this time, you'll see the usual menue, but with a diagnosis test option added. Go in there and you'll see various tests, such as braille cell test, keyboard test, even a headset test. One person claimed that he was able to hear classical music when he ran the headset test. I didn't hear anything when I tried it. So, hmmm.