Mouse

The name mouse, coined at the Stanford Research Institute, derives from the resemblance of early models (which had a cord attached to the rear part of the device, suggesting the idea of a tail) to the common eponymous rodent.

The first marketed integrated mouse - shipped as a part of a computer and intended for personal computer navigation - came with the Xerox 8010 Star Information System in 1981.

Douglas Engelbart of the Stanford Research Institute invented the mouse in 1963.

The computer industry often measures mouse sensitivity in terms of counts per inch (CPI), commonly expressed less correctly as dots per inch (DPI) - the number of steps the mouse will report when it moves one inch.

Keyboard

The QWERTY layout is an invention of Christopher Sholes.

Alternative layouts do exist, the best known of which is the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard; however, these layouts are not in widespread use.

Christopher Latham Sholes patented the typewriter that we commonly use today in 1868.

Monitor

The first cathode ray tube scanning device was invented by the German scientist Karl Ferdinand Braun in 1897.

Floppy Disk

In 1971, IBM introduced the first "memory disk", as it was called then, or the "floppy disk" as it is known today.

The "floppy" was invented by IBM engineers led by Alan Shugart. The first disks were designed for loading microcodes into the controller of the Merlin (IBM 3330) disk pack file (a 100 MB storage device).

Printer

In 1953, the first high-speed printer was developed by Remington-Rand for use on the Univac computer.

In 1938, Chester Carlson invented a dry printing process called electrophotography commonly called a Xerox, the foundation technology for laser printers to come.

Compact Disc (CD)

James Russell invented the compact disk in 1965.

In 1979, Philips and Sony set up a joint task force of engineers to design a new digital audio disc. The task force, led by prominent members Kees Immink and Toshitada Doi, progressed the research into laser technology and optical discs that had been started by Philips in 1977.[2] After a year of experimentation and discussion, the taskforce produced the Red Book, the Compact Disc standard.

Touch Screen

In 1971, the first "touch sensor" was developed by Doctor Sam Hurst (founder of  Elographics) while he was an instructor at the University of Kentucky.