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Bill Atkinson has died

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Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#101

Post by rsync »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #41
rjsw wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the difference between the Apple and Xerox approach may be more complicated than the people at PARC not knowing how to do this. The Alto doesn't have a framebuffer, each window has its own buffer and the microcode walks the windows to work out what to put on each scanline.

Not doubting that, but what is the substantive difference here? Does the fact that there is a screen buffer on the Mac facilitate clipping that is otherwise not possible on the Alto?

Displaying graphics (of any kind) without a framebuffer is called "racing the beam" and is technically quite difficult and involves managing the real world speed of the electron beam with the cpu clock speed ... as in, if you tax the cpu too much the beam goes by and you missed it ...

The very characteristic horizontally stretched graphics of the Atari 2600 are due to this - the CPU was actually too slow, in a sense, for the electron beam which means your horizontal graphic elements had a fairly large minimum width - you couldn't change the output fast enough.

I strongly recommend:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racing_the_Beam

... which goes into great detail on this topic and is one of my favorite books.

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#102

Post by bombcar »

viccis wrote: post #94
gxs wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have to say that I mused at the time about a wealthy, retired, engineer who throws money at high end photo gear and suddenly thinks they're a photographer I think this says more about you than it does about him

It's true though. This effect is what keeps companies like PRS in business.

There’s a whole industry of prosumer stuff in … well, many industries.

Power tools definitely have it!

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#104

Post by dang »

gxs wrote: post #79
JKCalhoun wrote: post #51

When I was on the ColorSync team at Apple we, the engineers, got an invite to his place-in-the-woods one day. I knew who he was at the time, but for some reason I felt I was more or less beholden to conversing only about color-related issues and how they applied to a computer workflow. Having retired, I have been kicking myself for some time not just chatting with him about ... whatever. He was at the time I met him…

> I have to say that I mused at the time about a wealthy, retired, engineer who throws money at high end photo gear and suddenly thinks they're a photographer I think this says more about you than it does about him

Please don't cross into personal attack. The cost outweighs any benefit.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#105

Post by bluedino »

dkislyuk wrote: post #16

From Walter Isaacson's _Steve Jobs_: > One of Bill Atkinson’s amazing feats (which we are so accustomed to nowadays that we rarely marvel at it) was to allow the windows on a screen to overlap so that the “top” one clipped into the ones “below” it. Atkinson made it possible to move these windows around, just like shuffling papers on a desk, with those below becoming visible or hidden as you moved the top ones. Of cou…

> In fact the folks at PARC had never accomplished it, and they later told him they were amazed that he had done so.

Reminds me of the story where some company was making a new VGA card, and it was rumored a rival company had implemented a buffer of some sort in their card. When both cards came out the rival had either not actually implemented it or implemented a far simpler solution

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#106

Post by spiralcoaster »

gxs wrote: post #79
JKCalhoun wrote: post #51

When I was on the ColorSync team at Apple we, the engineers, got an invite to his place-in-the-woods one day. I knew who he was at the time, but for some reason I felt I was more or less beholden to conversing only about color-related issues and how they applied to a computer workflow. Having retired, I have been kicking myself for some time not just chatting with him about ... whatever. He was at the time I met him…

> I have to say that I mused at the time about a wealthy, retired, engineer who throws money at high end photo gear and suddenly thinks they're a photographer I think this says more about you than it does about him

This is absolutely true and I don't understand why you're being downvoted. Especially in the context of this man just recently dying, there's someone throwing in their elitist opinion about photographers and how photography SHOULD be done, and apparently Bill was doing it wrong.

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#107

Post by DonHopkins »

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21779399

DonHopkins on Dec 13, 2019 | parent | context | favorite | on: Bill Atkinson: Reflections on the 40th anniversary...

I recently posted these thoughts about Bill Atkinson, and links to articles and a recent interview he gave to Brad Myers' user interface class at CMU: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21726302

Bill Atkinson is the humblest, sweetest, most astronomically talented guy -- practically the opposite of Rony Abovitz! I think they're on very different drugs. The Psychedelic Inspiration For Hypercard, by Bill Atkinson, as told to Leo Laporte.

"In 1985 I swallowed a tiny fleck of gelatin containing a medium dose of LSD, and I spent most of the night sitting on a concrete park bench outside my home in Los Gatos, California." ...

https://www.mondo2000.com/2018/06/18/the-inspiration-for-hyp...

Full interview with lots more details about the development of HyperCard:

https://twit.tv/shows/triangulation/episodes/247?autostart=f...

Bill Atkinson's guest lecture in Brad Meyer's CMU 05-640 Interaction Techniques class, Spring 2019, Feb 4, 2019:

https://scs.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=...

Including polaroids of early Lisa development.

About PhotoCard:

https://web.archive.org/web/20110303033205/http://www.billat...

PhotoCard by Bill Atkinson is a free app available from the iTunes App store, that allows you to create custom postcards using Bill's nature photos or your own personal photos, then send them by email or postal mail from your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch.

Bill Atkinson, Mac software legend and world renowned nature photographer, has created an innovative application that redefines how people create and send postcards.

With PhotoCard you can make dazzling, high resolution postcards on your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch, and send them on-the-spot, through email or the US Postal Service. The app is amazingly easy to use. To create a PhotoCard, select one of Bill's nature photos or one of your own personal photos. Then, flip the card over to type your message. For a fun touch, jazz up your PhotoCard with decorative stickers and stamps. If you're emailing your card, it can even include an audible greeting. When you've finished your creation, send it off to any email or postal address in the world!

pvg on Dec 13, 2019 | prev [–]

Was this bit about LSD and Hypercard covered before what seems like a 2016 interview and some later articles? So much has been written about HyperCard (and MacPaint and QuickDraw) I'm wondering if I somehow managed to miss it in all that material.

DonHopkins on Dec 13, 2019 | parent | next [–]

As far as I know, the first time Bill Atkinson publically mentioned that LSD inspired HyperCard was in an interview with Leo Laporte on Apr 25th 2016, which claims to be "Part 2". I have searched all over for part 1 but have not been able to find it. Then Mondo 2000 published a transcript of that part of the interview on June 18 2018, and I think a few other publications repeated it around that time.

And later on Feb 4, 2019 he gave a live talk to Brad Myers' "05-640: Interaction Techniques" user interface design class at CMU, during which he read the transcript.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~bam/uicourse/05440inter2019/schedule....

It's well worth watching that interview. He went over and explained all of his amazing Polaroids of Lisa development, which I don't think have ever been published anywhere else.

See Bill Atkinson's Lisa development polaroids:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~bam/uicourse/05440inter2019/Bill_Atki...

Then at 1:03:15 a student asked him the million dollar question: what was the impetus and motivation behind HyperCard? He chuckled, reached for the transcript he had off-camera, and then out of the blue he asked the entire class "How many of you guys have done ... a psychedelic?" (Brad reported "No hands", but I think some may have been embarrassed to admit it in front of their professor). So then Bill launched into reading the transcript of the LSD HyperCard story, and blew all the students' minds.

See video of Bill's talk:

https://scs.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=...

The next week I gave a talk to the same class that Bill had just traumatized by asking if they'd done illegal drugs, and (at 37:11) I trolled them by conspiratorially asking: "One thing I wanted to ask the class: Have any of you ever used ... (pregnant pause) ... HyperCard? Basically, because in 1987 I saw HyperCard, and it fucking blew my mind." Then I launched into my description of how important and amazing HyperCard was.

See video of Don's talk:

https://scs.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=...

Here is an index of all of the videos from Brad Myers' interaction techniques class, including Rob Haitani (Palm Pilot), Shumin Zhai (text input and swipe method), Dan Bricklin (spreadsheets, Demo prototyping tool), Don Hopkins (pie menus), and Bill Atkinson (Mac, HyperCard):

https://scs.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Sessions/List.a...

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#108

Post by dang »

rmason wrote: post #103
bilekas wrote: post #70

I need a facebook account to see this post ? Can we get a better link maybe on the homepage ?

Here's a post that quotes the original Facebook post and adds some personal comments. https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/06/07/bill-atkinson-r...

Thanks! I've changed the link to that from https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1023807357996337... above (but put the original URL in the top text so people can read both).
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