Despite years of innovation, nothing currently beats the humble keyboard and mouse combination. It allows us to do everything from the household accounts to battling aliens without having to think about what we're doing.

Maybe it's just familiarity, or maybe it really is the best possible interface the PC will ever have. Either way, any technology wanting to replace the classic double act has an uphill struggle ahead of it. But how did things get this way – and will the keyboard and mouse remain the status quo forever?

A brief history of UIs

From the 1960s until the 1980s, the way we worked with computers didn't really change: you'd enter commands with a keyboard, and you'd get a response in textual form either in print or on a screen. The breakthrough came when Douglas Engelbart invented the mouse in 1967, although as with many things, this wasn't necessarily obvious at the time.

As recently as 1984, columnist John C Dvorak wrote: "There is no evidence that people want to use these things." He probably wishes he hadn't written that one. The WIMP interface – Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointers – became mainstream with the launch of the Apple Macintosh in 1984.

The first version of Windows followed a year later, and by the release of Windows 3.0 in 1990, the mouse was a key part of most personal computer setups. Since then, the PC interface hasn't changed much. Windows Vista is certainly prettier than Windows 3.0, but the basics have remained the same.

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FOOT IN THE PAST: Windows 3.0 was the first operating system to bring the keyboard and mouse to the average user

However, the traditional keyboard, mouse and monitor configuration isn't the only way to interact with a PC, and over the years there have been numerous attempts to replace it. Until the late 1990s, when optical mice and laser systems started to surface, you didn't use a mouse for precision – you used a trackball.

The likes of us used these to play Missile Command, but trackballs were also used in real military applications such as air traffic control and sonar tracking. The arrival of optical mouse tracking in the 1990s enabled mice to catch up, however, and trackballs are now a rare sight.

The same applies to 3D mice, which were first floated in the 1990s. These models resembled the offspring of a trackball, a knob and a joystick. While Logitech's 3Dconnexion still makes them, they're largely used for working with 3D CAD and modelling apps rather than common desktop programs.

The first recognisable graphics tablet – the Styalator – was developed in 1957, although it wasn't until the 1980s that graphics tablets were commonly used with PCs. They were – and are – particularly popular with illustrators and designers, who benefit from the combination of a paper-like drawing surface and pressure-sensitive pens.

Pressure also made its way to monitors in the form of touch-sensitive screens, which you'll often find controlling point-of-sale PCs. Touch input soon moved to personal digital assistants (PDAs) such as Apple's ill-fated Newton. Other firms did a better job, however: Palm's PalmPilot sold in huge quantities, and Microsoft brought touch input and handwriting recognition to Windows CE (now known as Windows Mobile).

Bill Gates showed off a prototype Tablet PC in 2000, and tablet support has been built into Windows since XP. However, it wasn't until Apple shook things up in 2007 that touch interfaces became mainstream.