Mousepad

Mousetray screenshot from Engelbart's video

During a 1968 presentation by Douglas Engelbart marking the public debut of a mouse,[1] Engelbart used a control console designed by Jack Kelley of Herman Miller that
included a keyboard and an inset portion used as a support area for the mouse. [1][2] According to Kelley[3] and also stated by Alex Pang,[4] Kelley designed the first
mousepad a year later, in 1969.

Details of a mousepad designed by Armando M. Fernandez were published in the Xerox Disclosure Journal in 1979 with the description:[5]

CRT Cursor Control Mechanism Pad

To assist the operation of a cathode ray tube pointer 10 wherein a metal ball is rolled on a hard surface, the disclosed pad may be utilized. A resilient, rubber-like material
12 is bonded or otherwise attached to a hard base material 14 which keeps the rubber-like material flat. The base has four rubber-like pads 16 on the opposite side from
the resilient material to refrain the pad from sliding on the surface of a table, for instance.

— Xerox Disclosure Journal, Volume 4, Number 6, November/December 1979

By 1982, most users of the Xerox ball mouse were using "special pads" to increase the friction of the ball in the mouse.[6]

The first commercial manufacturer of mousepads was Moustrak, founded by Bob McDermand. The company began gaining traction when Apple decided to distribute its
mousepads, featuring the Apple logo, to computer stores in the United States. Moustrak signed licensing deals with Disney, Paramount, and LucasFilm, and advertised in
magazines including MacWorld. However, by the end of the 1980s, lower cost (and lower quality) mousepads turned the product into a commodity.[7][8]

The Oxford English Dictionary tracks the term mouse pad to the 24 August 1983, publication of InfoWorld, and the predominantly British term mousemat to 17 October
1989, in the publication 3D.