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Bill Atkinson has died

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Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#171

Post by bombcar »

leoc wrote: post #144
WillAdams wrote: post #5

Some notable stories from Folklore.org: https://www.folklore.org/Joining_Apple_Computer.html https://www.folklore.org/Negative_2000_Lines_Of_Code.html --- something to bring up whenever lines of code as a metric is put forward https://www.folklore.org/Rosings_Rascals.html --- story of how the Macintosh Finder came to be https://www.folklore.org/I_Still_Remember_Regions.html --- surviving a car accident

“Busy Being Born” https://www.folklore.org/Busy_Being_Born.html , with its priceless early glimpses of the Lisa/Mac UI preserved in Polaroid photos, may be the best.

This shows amazing foresight on Bill's part. It would have been easy for all that to be lost.

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#172

Post by bombcar »

THENATHE wrote: post #145

I know nothing about the fundamentals of “old computing” like what Mr. Atkinson worked on as I am only 27 and have much more contemporary experience. That being said, I still very greatly mourn the loss of these old head techs because the world of tech I use today would not have been possible if not for these incredibly smart and talented individuals. To learn to code without YouTube is truly a feat I could not imagi…

It's amazing to remember that there was an entire generation of computers and users for whom a command line was a new and modern invention!

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#174

Post by Aloha »

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…

You always lose something when doing optical printing - you can often gain things too, but its not 1:1.

I adore this hybrid workflow, because I can pick how the photo will look, color palate, grain, whatever by picking my film, then I can use digital to fix (most if not all of) the inherent limitations in analog film.

Sadly, film is too much of a pain today, photography has long been about composition for me, not cameras or process - I liked film because I got a consistent result, but I can use digital too, and I do today.

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#176

Post by JKCalhoun »

duskwuff wrote: post #135
JKCalhoun wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With overlapping rectangular windows (slightly simpler case than ones with rounded corners) you can expect visible regions of windows that are not foremost to be, for example, perhaps "L" shaped, perhaps "T" shaped (if there are many windows and they overlap left and right edges). Bill's region structure was, as I understand it, more or less a RLE (run-length encoded) representation of the visible rows of a window's…

The QuickDraw source code refers to the contents of the Region structure as an "unpacked array of sorted inversion points". It's a little short on details, but you can sort of get a sense of how it works by looking at the implementation of PtInRgn(Point, RegionHandle): https://github.com/historicalsource/supermario/blob/9dd3c4be... As far as I can tell, it's a bounding box (in typical L/T/R/B format), followed by a s…

Thanks for digging deeper.

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#177

Post by JKCalhoun »

throwanem wrote: post #157
JKCalhoun wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish a good monochrome digital camera didn't cost a small fortune. And I'm too scared to try to remove the Bayer grid from a "color" CCD. Seems that, without the color/Bayer thing, you could get an extra stop or two for low-light. I had a crazy notion to make a camera around an astronomical CCD (often monochrome) but they're not cheap either — at least one with a good pixel count.

I've replaced my D5300's viewfinder focusing screen a couple of times, back before I outgrew the need for focusing aids. I also wouldn't try debayering its sensor! But that sort of thing is what cheap beater bodies off your friendly local camera store's used counter, or eBay, were made for. Pixel count isn't everything, and how better to find out whether the depth of your interest would reward serious investment, tha…

I like that idea. I should start watching eBay.

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#178

Post by JKCalhoun »

lanyard-textile wrote: post #149
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…

:) Color in the computer is a good “whatever” topic. Sometimes it’s just nice to talk about the progress of humanity. Nothing better than being a part of it, the gears that make the world turn.

Ha ha, but it's also "talking shop". I'm sure Bill preferred it to talking about his Quickdraw days.

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#179

Post by JKCalhoun »

gxs wrote: post #166
brulard wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He said "at the time". If I say "I thought X at the time" it implies I have reconsidered since. Your parents comment was unnecessarily condescending

It’s just the timing and how he said it, especially considering the tone of the message overall But the irony isn’t lost on me that I myself shouldn’t have been so mean about it

You're right about the timing.

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#180

Post by peter303 »

rjsw wrote: post #35
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…

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.

Frame buffer memory was still incredibly expensive in 1980. Our labs 512 x 512 x 8bit table lookup color buffer cost $30,000 in 1980. Mac's 512 x 384 x 8bit buffer in 1984 had to fit the Macs $2500 price. The Xerox Alto was earlier than these two devices and would have cost even more if it had a full frame buffer.
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