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GUI Pioneer Jef Raskin Has Passed Away

Viridian writes "Jef Raskin, GUI pioneer, interface expert, Apple employee #31, and the man most credited with the creation of the Apple Macintosh, died of cancer on Saturday February 26, 2005. It was Raskin who named it after his favorite fruit, the McIntosh apple, although he said that he changed the spelling to "Macintosh" to avoid potential copyright conflicts with McIntosh, the audio equipment manufacturer."

14 of 353 comments (clear)

  1. McIntosh apples are bland and tasteless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Seriously, I'm sad that he died and stuff, but how in the hell can that be anyone's favorite fruit?

  2. Hmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Will he be buried next to BSD?

  3. not an apple fan by OffTheLip · · Score: -1, Troll

    but the simplicity and consistency of the Mac was its strength. Not sure about that 1 button mouse though...

    1. Re:not an apple fan by northcat · · Score: -1, Troll

      Mac's strenght is its availability in 3,847 different colours.

  4. Help! by Tablizer · · Score: -1, Troll

    GUI's cause cancer! I'm switching to Lynx

  5. He's not dead! by nublaii · · Score: -1, Troll

    He's just like Sleeping Beauty... He choked when he took a bite of the Apple :)

    Long live Jef Resking

  6. Re:Nothing on the Apple Site by northcat · · Score: 0, Troll

    Because "Steve" is just another wealthy industrialist who only cares about money and doesn't care about the users or employees.

  7. Disrespect for the dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Come on, have some respect for the dead. A lot of good people put hard work into *BSD. Have some sympathy, man!

  8. Geeks and life after death by Amsterdam+Vallon · · Score: -1, Troll

    First, rest in peace, Jef. You did amazing things for Apple and as a coder I enjoy your take on interface design theory.

    But, and perhaps a bit off-topic here, I'm fascinated by comments so far in this thread about heaven and afterlife and how he's better off now than he was on Earth.

    I don't believe in God. I think we die and then we lose consciousness and then that's it. No pearly gates. No halos. None of that stuff.

    So why is it that we all forget our religion (or lack thereof) when people die? Why is it still politically correct for us to act like God and Jesus and all that is legit when people die, but in reality most people aren't religous and those who are... are usually evil power-hungry people.

    Just curious. I study the Bible in my spare time for fun and intrigue and always am interested in this stuff.

    --

    Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
  9. Correct me if i'm wrong ... by kuzb · · Score: -1, Troll

    but shouldn't we be mentioning that Xerox was the *real* GUI pioneer? The one thing apple and microsoft have in common is they both stole the idea of a GUI from someone else.

    --
    BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
  10. Re:Nothing on the Apple Site by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Jobs is one of the highest paid CEOs in the US even though Apple is relatively a small company. Obviously he IS concerned about money or he wouldn't have advertised the (false) story about the $1/yr salary while raking it in.

  11. Not a pioneer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    He wasn't a pioneer! Xerox at PARC invented and used GUI in several products. Several of which were well used and even obsolete by the time the Mac hit the market. Heck, even X11 predates his work. He just barely beat Microsoft.

    His death means nothing, move along.

  12. Raskin was ANTI MOUSE!!!! (anti mac too) Really. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Raskin was a fool. His work since 1985 shows his anti mouse hostilities but even his work at apple was sabatoge and illthinking.

    In the first major book on macintosh engineering that SHIPPED in 1984 along with the mac, the anti mouse fanatic was DOCUMENTED across america in countless bookstores in The Book of Macintosh.

    refer to kind summary of these facts in link :

    http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/A/ Ap /Apple_Macintosh.htm

    refer to the line "Notable is Raskin's insistence on using meta-keys, rather than a mouse, to act as a pointing device. "

    from that page.

    repeat after me : "Notable is Raskin's insistence on using meta-keys, rather than a mouse, to act as a pointing device. "

    Raskin was so anti mouse he did all he could his ENTIRE CARREER to eliminate buttons, scrolling, windows, clicking, dragging, etc.

    I am not making this up.

    I own the famous and historic data packed history book from 1984 entitled "The Book of Macintosh"

    It is a FACT that RAskin was a horrible GUI designer and a hater of the mac.

    He was going to get fired if he did not quit as soon as he did.

    I cannot believe I and his coworkers are the only few people that remember his arguments with Steve Jobs to not ship or design a mouse with the macintosh!!!!!

    his next projects he designed outside apple were all NON MOUSE word processsing computers,

    Naturally the mac lived on, and thrived, and finally Raskin dies,

    I am finally happy once again.

    Long live the Mac and LONG LIVE THE MOUSE!!!

    no on moderates or reads any more on slashdot but the submission was flame bait to enrage the few people like me that despised the anti mouse Raskin. It worked my blood pressure is up. Maybe i will die next of disgust at this thread heaping undeserved praise to a fanatic anti-mac zealot.

  13. Re:Jef Raskin Memorial TBA and details by Reservoir+Penguin · · Score: 0, Troll

    I dont get it. He died of cancer just after few months??? His wife should be ashamed because she obviously didnt encourage him to seek treatment. And this is not a troll. I speak from experience seeing how doctors only gave a few months to live for my wife's borther but with full family ecouragement he is still alive years later.

    --
    US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil