referring to fig1 a touch screen display 12 may be coupled to a processor - based system 18 . the processor - based system 18 may include software 14 that translates touch screen events into mouse events . thus , processor - based system 18 software 16 , which expects to receive mouse events , receives events generated from the touch screen 12 that are recognized by the software 16 as though the touch screen events were mouse events . this may occur despite the fact that the system 18 does not use a mouse and no mouse operation is utilized in connection with the touch screen 12 . instead , interaction with the touch screen 12 in an appropriate fashion is translated into a mouse event by the software 14 and forwarded to the software 16 to implement the appropriate software controls . in other words , the software 16 responds to interaction with the touch screen 12 as though a mouse had been utilized . thus , conventional software that relies on mouse events may be utilized in connection with touch screens . in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention , shown in fig2 touch screen translator software 14 may detect the presence of the user &# 39 ; s finger or stylus on the touch screen 12 , as indicated in diamond 22 . in response to the detection of the finger / stylus , a mouse over event may be generated , as indicated in block 24 . a mouse over event corresponds to a mouse cursor being positioned over a display element , without selecting that element by a mouse click . a check at diamond 26 determines whether the user &# 39 ; s finger / stylus moves . if so , a mouse move event may be generated as indicated in block 28 . a mouse move event corresponds to movement of a mouse which results in movement of the position of the mouse cursor on a display screen in correspondence to the user &# 39 ; s mouse movement . a check at diamond 30 determines whether the finger / stylus presence is still detected on the touch screen 12 . if so , the flow iterates to monitor for finger / stylus movement at diamond 26 . otherwise , a mouse click event may be generated as indicated at block 32 . when the user removes the user &# 39 ; s finger / stylus from the touch screen 12 , the display element last under the user &# 39 ; s finger / stylus may be determined to have been selected . as a result , a mouse click event , corresponding to the actuation of a mouse button , may be generated . thus , the software 14 may implement mouse commands including the mouse over , mouse move and mouse click events . other conventional mouse events may be generated as well . different finger / stylus actuations can be recognized as the mouse over , move or click event . however , in each case , a particular finger / stylus movement or actuation may be translated into a corresponding mouse event that may be recognized by software 16 that expects conventional mouse commands . finally , referring to fig3 one embodiment of a processor - based system 10 to implement the present invention is illustrated . of course , the present invention is not in any way limited to any particular hardware architecture or arrangement . the embodiment shown in fig3 is simply an illustration of a wireless mobile processor - based device . in the system 10 , a processor 38 is coupled to a touch screen display 40 and a power controller 42 . the processor 38 , in one embodiment , may be the strongarm brand processor available from intel corporation . the processor 38 may also communicate with a host processor - based system using sync signals 58 and file transfer signals 60 . the processor 38 is also coupled to a coder / decoder or codec 44 . the codec 44 provides an analog output signal to headphones 46 or speakers 48 . a baseband section 50 is coupled to a radio frequency interface 52 in one embodiment . the interface 52 may facilitate communications with a base station using a wireless protocol . this may be the case in a variety of portable devices including web tablets and personal digital assistants , as two examples . in other embodiments , the system 10 may be a standalone system , may communicate over a tethered cable with a base station , or may use other wireless techniques such as infrared technology . the processor of 38 is also coupled to a static random access memory ( sram ) 54 and a flash memory 56 in one embodiment . in that embodiment , the translator software 14 and the software 16 may be stored in the flash memory 56 . of course , other types of storage devices , such as hard disk drives , may also be used in other applications . the processor 38 is also coupled to one or more peripheral cards 62 . the touch screen translator software 14 may be integrated into conventional application programs on a given processor - based system . for example , the software 14 may be integrated into internet browser software . in addition , the software 14 may be integrated into a graphics support layer that is used for building graphical user interfaces , such as a java abstract window tool kit ( awt ). in some cases , the software 14 may even be incorporated into the operating system . it may even be useful in many cases to integrate the translator software 14 into the graphics support layer to allow a large number of application programs to run with touch screen displays without alteration of the operating system itself . while the present invention has been described with respect to a limited number of embodiments , those skilled in the art will appreciate numerous modifications and variations therefrom . it is intended that the appended claims cover all such modifications and variations as fall within the true spirit and scope of this present invention .