The fundamental means of user input under MS-DOS is the keyboard. This follows naturally from the MS-DOS command-line interface, whose lineage can be traced directly to minicomputer operating systems with Teletype consoles. During the first few years of MS-DOS's existence, when 8088/8086-based machines were the norm, nearly every popular application program used key-driven menus and text-mode displays.
However, as high-resolution graphics adapters (and 80286/80386-based machines with enough power to drive them) have become less expensive, programs that support windows and a graphical user interface have steadily grown more popular. Such programs typically rely on a pointing device such as a mouse, stylus, joystick, or light pen to let the user navigate in a "point-and-shoot" manner, reducing keyboard entry to a minimum. As a result, support for pointing devices has become an important consideration for all software developers.