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Bill Atkinson has died

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Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#221

Post by lutusp »

My time with Atkinson came before the Macintosh, before Hypercard. As a company Apple was struggling and we were preparing for what, in retrospect, was the really terrible Apple III. It was a less optimistic time -- after the Apple II and before the Macintosh.

A digression: the roster of Apple-related pancreatic cancer victims is getting longer -- Jef Raskin (2005), Steve Jobs (2011), now Bill Atkinson (2025). The overall pancreatic cancer occurrence rate is 14 per 100,000, so such a cluster is surprising within a small group, but the scientist in me wants to argue that it's just a coincidence, signifying nothing.

Maybe it's the stress of seeing how quickly one's projects become historical footnotes, erased by later events. And maybe it's irrational to expect anything else.

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#222

Post by tejtm »

hugs wrote: post #186
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…

"When art critics get together they talk about form and structure and meaning. When artists get together they talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine."

-- Picasso

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#223

Post by pmoriarty »

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.

Here is a video of Bill showing and discussing those Polaroids: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg0mHFcB510

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#224

Post by 1123581321 »

kevinventullo wrote: post #123
1123581321 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much. Most of us have creative itches to scratch that make us a bit miserable if we never get to pursue them, even if given a comfortable life. It’s circumstantial whether we get to pursue them as entrepreneurs or employees. The users or enjoyers of our work benefit either way.

Just to add on, some of us have creative itches that are not directly monetizable, and for which there may be no users or enjoyers of our work at all (if there are, all the better!). Naturally I don’t expect to do such things for a living.

Yes, and thankful for these. Good addition.

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#225

Post by JKCalhoun »

gavmor wrote: post #23

If you haven't, check out the documentary[0] on General Magic which Bill co-founded in 1990. Among the more remarkable scenes in there is when a member of the public seems perplexed by the thought that they would even want to "check email from Times Square." An unthinkable future, but they thought it. And yet, most folks have never heard of General Magic. 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQymn5flcek

Atkinson at this timestamp: https://youtu.be/JQymn5flcek?si=2TMJ8b9zsR_Kitj-&t=1297

Also, it's here in the documentary that someone expresses the excitement anticipating the smart phone. It's hard to watch for me now and not shake my head, "Oh, it's not quite as wonderful as you imagined."

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#226

Post by mindslight »

kalleboo wrote: post #183
mindslight wrote: post #33

[flagged]

https://archive.md/W7iOf

Thank you for that, actually. Archive.md is my go to for trashwalled news articles, somehow I didn't think to do that for a Faceboot URL. Probably because I don't respect Faceboot enough to imagine they operate with real URIs.

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#227

Post by pmoriarty »

garciasn wrote: post #30
LorenDB wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lines of code story is a timeless classic.

Score code on line count and runtime golf. Shorter, faster, and fastest time to completion is best. Code that’s 4K and took slightly less time to write but runs slightly faster than code that’s 400 bytes that took another 30m to write still doesn’t get the best score.

> Shorter, faster, and fastest time to completion is best.

What about correctness, robustness, readability, clarity, maintainability?

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#228

Post by pmoriarty »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #72

For anyone (like me) wondering who this guy was, he was a prominent UI guy at Apple back in the day. According to Wikipedia he created the menu bar, QuickDraw, and HyperCard. For whomever submits stories like this, please say who the person was. Very few people are so famous that everyone in tech knows who they were, and Mr. Atkinson was not one of them. I've heard of his accomplishments, but never the man himself.

The NYT credits him with inventing the double click.[1]

[1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/technology/bill-atkinson-...

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#229

Post by tw1984 »

lutusp wrote: post #221

My time with Atkinson came before the Macintosh, before Hypercard. As a company Apple was struggling and we were preparing for what, in retrospect, was the really terrible Apple III. It was a less optimistic time -- after the Apple II and before the Macintosh. A digression: the roster of Apple-related pancreatic cancer victims is getting longer -- Jef Raskin (2005), Steve Jobs (2011), now Bill Atkinson (2025). The ov…

Steve Jobs had pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor, which is not the traditional form of the pancreatic cancer people usually talk about. It is far less aggressive and completely treatable, in fact almost 100% curable as Jobs had it diagnosed at such an early stage.

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#230

Post by erksa »

Not just a huge influence w/ Apple. Bill Atkinson was a dedicated photographer who did a lot to help bring the idea of sharing memories together.

He and his associated printed and sent tons of photography all around the world.

The was loved among photographers as well. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/photocard-by-bill-atkinson/id3...

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