Jef Raskin passes away, February 26th....

[Eric]

As many of you might have noticed, Google has put up a link to a search for "Jef Raskin" in memorial of the great man's death on their main page. He may have passed away, but he will remain unforgotten. Many of you might not know him, and I know this is a bit late, but as his legacy lives on, here is some information on him:

Jef Raskin (March 9, 1943–February 26, 2005) was an American human-computer interface expert best-known for starting the Macintosh project for Apple Computer in the late 1970s.

Raskin was born in New York City. He received degrees in mathematics (B.S. 1964) and philosophy (B.A. 1965) at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He earned a master's degree in computer science at Pennsylvania State University in 1967. His first computer program, a music program, was part of his master's thesis.

Raskin later enrolled in a graduate music program at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD), but stopped to teach art, photography and computer science there, working as an assistant professor from 1970 until 1974.

Raskin joined Apple in January 1978 as the company's 31st employee. For some time he was director of Publications and New Product Review, but also worked on packaging and other issues. Through this time he continually wrote memos about a much simpler-to-use computer, and suggested Apple start such a project.

He later hired his former student Bill Atkinson from UCSD to work at Apple, and began the Macintosh project in 1979. The machine he envisioned was much different than the Macintosh that was eventually released, or other GUI based machines in general, and had much more in common with PDA's like the PalmOS. The machine used a small 9-inch black-and-white character display built into a small case with a floppy disk, and used a number of function keys to change from one built-in program to another, but the machine would also understand user intentions and switch programs on the fly. For instance, if the user simply started typing it would switch into editor mode, and if they typed numbers it would switch to calculator mode. In many cases these switches would be largely invisible to the user.

In 1981 Steve Jobs, who had supported the Macintosh project but was more deeply involved in shaping the direction for the Apple Lisa, was asked to stop interfering in the Lisa project. He directed his attention to Raskin's Macintosh project, intending to marry the Xerox PARC-inspired GUI-based Lisa design to Raskin's appliance computing, "computers-by-the-millions" concept. Raskin takes credit for introducing Jobs and other Apple employees to the PARC concepts, but it appears this is not really the case. Raskin also claims to have had continued direct input into the eventual Mac design, including the decision to use a one-button mouse as part of the Apple interface, a departure from the Xerox PARC standard of a three-button mouse. Larry Tesler, among others, debates this claim. Raskin later stated that were he to redesign the interface he would use a two button mouse.

Raskin left Apple in 1982 and formed Information Appliance, through which he implemented his original concepts for the Macintosh. The first product was a firmware card for the Apple II, called the SWYFT card, which was a keyboard-driven integrated application suite. Information Appliance later shipped the Swyft as a stand-alone laptop computer. Raskin licensed this design to Canon, who shipped a similar product as the Canon Cat. Released in 1987, the unit had an innovative interface which attracted much interest but it did not become a commercial success. Raskin claimed that its failure was due in some part to Steve Jobs, who successfully pitched Canon on the NeXT Computer at about the same time.

Raskin also authored a text, The Humane Interface, in which he developed his ideas about human-computer interfaces.

At the beginning of the new millennium, Raskin undertook the building of The Humane Environment (THE). THE is a system incarnating his concepts of the humane interface, by using open source elements within his rendition of a ZUI or Zooming User Interface.

While best-known as a computer scientist, Raskin also had other interests. He conducted the San Francisco Chamber Opera Society and played three instruments. His artwork was displayed at New York's Museum of Modern Art. He also received a patent for airplane wing construction. He was also said to be an accomplished archer, target shooter and an occasional race car driver.

Jef Raskin was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in December 2004 and died in Pacifica, California on February 26, 2005, at age 61.

Read more here(original source)

[Stuff2Do]

i didnt know him, people die everyday, i never even read it, i hate it when people remember one death, but they dont remember another, everyone is as important as eachother, i didnt care about him, i dont think about someone that got ran over, because i ddidnt know him, im not gonna think about him either

[darrenstraight]

I had not heard of him since very recently while doing some research on the internet.

So it’s sad to hear that he's died, I guess we all die eventually.

BTW Eric I was going to post this article but you beat me to it, you will also notice that google as the following at the bottom of there main page: In memoriam, Jef Raskin 1943-2005

[Stuff2Do]

whys it sad HE died, there aint a post for every signle person that dies in the world, so i dont even think about this, i didnt know him, i dont actually care he died, it dont effect me, i dont care if you think im a cold hearted ........, so, hes not special

[tntcheats]

i didnt know him, people die everyday, i never even read it, i hate it when people remember one death, but they dont remember another, everyone is as important as eachother, i didnt care about him, i dont think about someone that got ran over, because i ddidnt know him, im not gonna think about him either

Sorry, but not everyone is equal. Some make kids and those kids are just the end of the family line, and neither them nor their kids accomplish much of anything. People who accomplish more or have children who do things do effect life a lot.

Wow, this guy sure did a lot in his life. Hopefully, he was able to do all he wanted in the span of it.

[dude66]

I only heard of him when he dided. Shame he died though.