I am a curious person, but sometimes my curiosity is aroused by accident, like many things in our lives. One day I was working on my computer when my 2-year old daughter came to my desk, took the mouse pad and soaked it in the bath tub. I was busy and I had to finish my work, so I did not have time to go out and buy a new one, so I improvised: I used a book first. But the cover was not hard, so after a few moves the cover moved and my mouse ended on the book pages and torn them. I tried to use a newspaper: even worse, it was not an even hard neat surface. I used a glass support, but it was too small. After half an hour I was already nervous and I gave up any replacement for  the mouse pad. But the desk is slippery  and my mouse kept slipping until I went and bought a new pad. My story made me wonder and think: so the mouse pad has certain features and qualities that cannot be replaced by other things. That's when I decided to find out more about it.

The dictionary says that the mousepad, sometimes mouse pad, mouse mat or mousemat, pl. mousepads, is a pad with an enhanced surface to assist the operation of a display pointer.".

But when did the first mouse pad appear and who invented it? I found that out, too. They say that Douglas Engelbart,  the inventor of the computer mouse, presented it to the public in 1968, even though he invented it since 1964. During this public presentation he used a control console with a keyboard with an inset portion used as a support area for the mouse. The designer of this console was Jack Kelley and he noticed the need for a separate pad for the mouse, so he invented the mouse pad the next year, 1969.

The first details of the mouse pad were published in Xerox Disclosure Journal, volume 4, number 6, November/December 1979. The Cursor control mechanism pad ,  as it was called, was meant to"assist the operation of a cathode ray tube pointer wherein a metal ball is rolled on a hard surface  A resilient rubber-like material is bonded or otherwise attached to a hard base material which keeps the rubber-like material flat. The base has four rubber like material pads on the opposite side from the resilient material to refrain the pad from sliding from the surface of a table, for instance. So the mousepad was invented 40 years ago, but became popular and largely used only 20 years ago or so. Now you can see this item in all homes and offices, having different designs and colours, even different shapes and material. The essential purpose of the mouse pad is to allow the mouse to move slowly across the surface it is placed on. You can use many types of mouse controllers without pads, but their movements are not smooth and it can slow down your work or even annoy you. The 1980s was the best period for the ball mouse and by that time almost all the users had a special pad that helped them increase the friction of the ball, allowing them to make more accurate movements of the cursor on the computer screen.

The new word"mouse pad" became more and more common and used by everybody that it was used in the publication of Infoworld in 1983 and its British equivalent"mousemat" was used in an article in the publication 3D in October 1989. Nowadays this term is used regularly and is part of our every day language. The mouse pad is beneficial not only for the mouse, but also for the user: it allows higher speed, more precision and more comfort for the computer user.It also prevents the desk or surface of the table from being scratched or deteriorated by continuous hand and mouse moving motion. The mouse pad keeps the mouse clean, hence a better functioning and speed. If the mouse stays on the pad it does not collect dirt and debris from the table and has a longer life. Pads were especially useful when computer mice had balls, because the ball gathered all tiny pieces of wood, fabric, dirt and so on and made the mouse work more slowly and less accurately.But the ball mouse is now history and its place was taken by the optical mice which use image sensors to detect movement.

When they first appeared on the market they required special mouse pads in order to function properly. Nowadays the modern optical mice can work just fine on a piece of paper or the desk, but some users still prefer a mouse pad for reasons of speed, accuracy,  comfort and to prevent the desk from being worn out. Mouse pads are very simple things; still they have a big variety of shapes, colors and materials. Most of the pads are rectangular or even square in shape, but computer users began to be more and more demanding, unique and desired personalized pads. Thus we can see round, oval, heart-shaped pad, pads with the picture of your family or pet on, larger or smaller with a company's logo on used for customers as a gift or only used for decorative purposes. We may even meet artistic pads with reproductions of the works of famous artists. So, when the offer is so various, it is easy to find a pad for every taste. Now let's talk a bit about the materials used to make a pad. Materials varied in time according to the needs of the computer mice: ball mouse users preferred vinyl for their pads because of its natural adhesive properties. So vinyl board cover was the most popular pad surface during 1980s.

After some time the steel ball from the roller ball mouse was covered with rubberized silicon, thus gaining more adherence. So the popular fabric surface of the mouse pad was considered to be more appropriate. It kept the ball surface cleaner and improved the speed and accuracy of the mouse. Optical mice do not work properly on reflective surfaces or on transparent materials. That is why nowadays we prefer pads made of materials such as plastic, leather, silicon rubber.