Jef Raskin, creator of the Apple Macintosh died on Saturday,
February 26, aged 61.
Mr. Raskin was born in New York in 1943. He studied philosophy,
mathematics, data processing, and electronics. His formal education was
arts education at the University of San Diego. Later, he taught data
processing, and music composition.
Mr. Raskin joined Apple as employee number 31 in 1978 to manage the
publications department. In 1979, Mr. Raskin began work on the project
that what was to become the Apple Macintosh - his idea was to develop a
machine that was cheap, aimed at consumers rather than computer
professionals, and was very easy to use.
In January 1984 the
Apple Macintosh was unveiled and won acclaim as the world's
most-advanced - and easy to use - personal computer. However, Mr.
Raskin had left the Macintosh project three years prior, being sent on
an involuntary leave of absence by Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, who had
assumed control of the Macintosh group after being ousted from the
Lisa group.
Despite Mr. Raskin's founding of the Macintosh project, some members
of the Macintosh community have asked whether Mr. Raskin was really
"the father of the Mac" as the press styled him.
In 2004, Macintosh team member Andy Hertzfeld told this journalist
that: "Jef deserves a huge amount of credit for starting the Macintosh
project and articulating the fundamental ideas behind it (an easy to
use, low cost, high volume, consumer appliance computer). He also put
together an amazing initial team to realize the ideas. But he left
Apple during the early development stages and deserves little credit
for the actual design and implementation of the Macintosh as
shipped."
After leaving Apple, Mr. Raskin went on to found
Information Appliance, which developed the Canon Cat "work processor"
that embodied many of his original concepts for the Macintosh.
In December 2004, Mr. Raskin was diagnosed with cancer. He had just
acquired funding for a his human-computer interface project entitled
Archy, formerly known as the Humane Interface.
Mr. Raskin is survived by his wife of 23 years, Linda Blum, and; his
children, Aza, Aviva, and Aenea.
