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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."
Bill Gates pays his respects
If the dollar is an "I owe you nothing", then the Euro is a "Who owes you nothing." - Doug Casey
Steve is usually a touchy feely type guy, i'm surprised that there's not anything on the Apple site about it, however small.
cleverly disguised as a responsible adult ||
Well, oft criticized on here, I still hope his humane interface project keeps going...
"When no-one around you understands start your own revolution and cut out the middle man"
You would think that the Apple website would have something, they care about their employess alot. Or at least more then other corporate companies
Bugger.
There are few enough decent UI designers out there who understand what is actually important over what "looks real pretty". Here was a man who was more interested in it working for people, than it looking good on a poster.
The original Mac interface is a design classic, where design is about function, not about style.
So next time you design an interface or a web page remember the creator of the Mac. What you create will be WORSE than the Mac.. BECAUSE of all the colours and "clever" bits you used.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
All my sympathy to his family and friends.
Farewell sir, and thanks.
Ed Almos
Budapest, Hungary
The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. - Tacitus, 56-120 A.D.
He was one of my VERY few programming heros.
Controversial in his views, at least he had some mindshare and was pushing the envelope in innovation with his interface experiments. Rather than incrementally changing what has become the de facto UI over tha past 20 years, he was willing to step out of the box, get some metrics and push a vision for "easy to use" software and interfaces.
Not just some crank with wild ideas, he was able to get some of his visions into practice and leverage that developmental capital into newer and more refined methods and idioms.
We've lost a visionary folks, and that's just a shame. His loss hurts us all.
They had a good enough reason for that... Why Apple Uses One Buttoned Mice
I know we have discussed his more recent work on ZUI and whatnot here before and some people are a big fan of it and others are not. But I wonder what will happen with the project, or if it will be continued by others he was working with. He seems to be the one who really spear-headed the effort. Does anyone know? It would be a shame if he couldn't finish his project as he conceived it and it got dropped because there was no one to take it over. Condolences to anyone who knew him well.
Jef,
Thank you for the computer that has changed the world, and to his family the deepest sympathy from a greatful community.
Sad news indeed. :(
Heres some more information I found about the naming of macintosh apples.
"The Macintosh project began at Apple as one code-named Annie, and spearheaded not by Steve Jobs (he actually lobbied against the Mac project at one point) but by Jeff Raskin, a former computer professor and Apple employee number 31. Raskin is generally credited with quickly changing the codename from Annie to Macintosh, an obvious tie to the Apple brand. Macintosh was spelled differently than the apple variety, however, in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid trademark disputes. Apple itself, lore has it, was named by Steve Jobs for either his love of the Beatles (and their Apple Records label), his interest in health foods, or because of his fond experiences working in the apple orchards of Oregon during a brief stint at college there. Or for none of those reasons. Except for the short-lived Pippin operating system, Apple the company thankfully avoided any other product references to varieties of apple, the fruit."
(taken from creativepro)
I have started reading his webpage and about The Humane Interface, and I have to say that this guy really knew what computers were for. For getting work done, to use as a tool for your tasks at hand. I think a lot more programmers could learn from him.
I can't spell ripburger
With the greatest respect to the guy :)
--Confirmation Dialog--
Jef Raskin, are you sure you want to logout?
[Yes] [No]
liqbase
He truly was one of my heroes, though I only realised it the last few years. Respect to him, condolances to them he left behind.
*steps back and bows again*
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
I was looking forward to The Humane Environment (THE). It looked rather promising. I'm sure it will continue development, but without the man who actually had a good grasp on UI technology and THE behind it, the development is likely to go the wrong way. Imagine what would have happened if Stallman's Emacs was given over to Bill Gates to manage. We'd have wound up with a really hard to use word processor the also does calendaring, web browsing, e-mail composition, and a whole host of other things + Clippy. Oh wait... Beyond this, it must really suck for his family since he is of far more signifigance to them than he will ever be even to people who think he was a UI genius (myself inluded).
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
I found your insights to be spectacular. I used to work in a Software Etcetera and make fun of Macintosh computers all the time. Of course then I was a hardened Windows user pushing software. I'm glad I finally came around and bought a Macintosh. The interface simplicity, and how much of it Windows derived, really sold me and now I own three.
...and of course the stories about you at http://www.folklore.org are an inspirational read.
.deviatefromtheabsolute.
Goodbye.
So long, and thanks for all the clicks, Jef. May you find the perfect interface you have dreamt of for so long in the hereafter.
For ever in debt.
I hope you'll be more satisfied up there than you were down here. So long and thanks.
Back when the Macintosh was invented, we didn't have the same fruit diversity available at the market that we now have today...
Could be worse though... imagine if his favourite fruit had been the Durian
Bizarre UI. Would have been interesting if it had been cultivated.
Apple gets a lot of flak about the one-button mouse, but I can't see any justification for it. The whole interface was designed from the start not to need a second button on the mouse It's paramount to the simplicity of the Mac interface, but even the person responsible for it admits to the usefulness of having a second mouse button (from the Wikipedia article):
He is credited with the decision to use a one-button mouse as part of the Apple interface, a departure from the Xerox PARC standard of a three-button mouse. He has since stated that were he to redesign the interface today, he would have used a two button mouse.
I don't think it was a mistake for them to go with a single button, but it's more of a fundamental difference in the design. I couldn't imagine using a Windows computer without the right button, as much as I can't see a need for one on a Mac.
Bears don't normally eat things that talk and move backwards.
Damn.
Smart guy, excellent GUI designer, and someone who will be truely missed in the Apple Community.
Hell, even my Mac mini looks sad.
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
He'll be missed.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
His work touched the lives of so many people in the world, in nothing but a positive way. I don't know about anybody else but it makes me sad to see the fathers of our industry pass away.
May his soul rest in peace.
I like things that are sweet and not things that are lame. --
Actually, Apple's website is http://www.applecorpsltd.com/. There's, err, nothing on the website, except for this great big apple.
If you get your McIntoshs at the market they probably are bland and tasteless. I can drive 20 minutes from here in pretty much any direction and pick my own, in season. Nothing like 'em fresh!
We usually wait for Macouns a week or two later, though.
All the "eastern" types are better than any of the "delicious" types, when fresh. If I want to buy eating apples in the winter, I go for a Braeburn, usually from New Zealand. Expensive, but they're huge. One is usually too much.
Oh yes! The Stapler!
I met Jef and Aza in Sweden last year at the EuroPython conference where he was talking about Archy, an editor with a more humane interface that they were working on. It was a pleasure to speak with him about computers, music and other things. My condolences go out to his family.
Now just guess who was Raskin's previous employer.
Also, whilst Xerox got all the basics right, they didn't have anything like the desktop metaphor, or a menu bar.
From Linda Blum, his wife, comes this note: Dear Friends, Jef died this evening, surrounded by friends and family, with some favorite music playing. While I am overcome by a profound sense of sadness and am not looking forward the days, weeks and years ahead without him, I am also relieved that he did not suffer for a long time and that he is at peace and no longer in pain. There will be a memorial service, time and date to be determined. ----------- My first thoughts: We lost one of the great ones today, a good and generous man. Jef Raskin died of cancer this evening, after being sick for several months. A wonderful spirit and renaissance man, who inspired me and many others. He created the Macintosh project at Apple in 1979, naming it after his personal favorite fruit He left Apple to form Information Appliances, where he designed the Canon Cat with an innovative interface. He continued refining human interface design, publishing his ideas in The Humane Interface (Addison Wesley, 2000.) The Humane Interface ideas are being implemented in the Raskin Center project Archy, where is son, Aza, is a programmer. His artwork was displayed at New York's Museum of Modern Art. He conducted the San Francisco Chamber Opera Society and wrote the score for a movie, "Smog Patterns," shown on PBS. He has a patent for a "Construction Technique for an Airplane Wing," and was a noted model airplane designer, an accomplished archer, and an occasional race car driver. Website is http://jef.raskincenter.org/home/index.html .There is also a collection of photographs and history at http://www.digibarn.com/friends/jef-raskin/index.h tml Jennie Bourne and I are in the midst of making a movie about him http://www.jefthemovie.com .
Slashdot previously covered his project, and there is some interesting discussion about some of his ideas in this article.
Look, once and for all, BSD is NOT dying. And yes, Netcraft does friggin' confirm it, so can we please let this troll die its long-overdue natural death?
I hope he knows we're eternally greatful for his contributions to the world of computing.
Help me, help you. - Jerry McGuire
You are wrong. Apple didn't steal anything. They licensed part of the GUI idea from Xerox and added many of their own ideas in the creation of the Mac OS.
See: http://www.mackido.com/Interface/ui_history.html
The only mention I can find on the entire Apple site (using their "advanced search") is something about "DB2 HyperCard Demo Disks" referring to the "Raskin-Bobbins Hypercard Stack". You'd think that someone of Raskin's stature and relevance to Apple's success would at least have an honorable mention somewhere.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Will he be buried next to BSD?
Well, is there a "Score -5: Funny" rating ?
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
I recall wandering in my fave computer shop at the times, I was a proud Apple //c owner. There were the Lisa beast and the Mac. I could play with them a little. I was really blown away when I experienced the desktop metaphor and how it worked, it was the first time i could use a new system without touching a manual for command syntax.
This guy made a difference.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
"We've lost a visionary folks, and that's just a shame. His loss hurts us all."
Agreed. Although what hurt us more was the fact that many didn't listen while he was still alive.
yet their more professional apps are meant to be used and demoed with multi button mice..
you can make up reasons all you want but it's just tradition, style, and wanting to seperate from the rest that's keeping them at 1 button now. style over function.
i don't think of it as particularly intuitive that i need to press a button on the keyboard to get the stuff i'd usually get from right clicking.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I think it has to do with the number of fingers on your hand. Work arounds could be done for windows as they've been done for the Mac, but it would just deny the number of fingers sitting there at that mouse. Just as there really is no *need* for a mouse, but in some circumstances it makes things easier, there is no *need* for three-button scroll mice, but they make things *easier*.
right on. I am a proud mac owner, but can't stand to use a mac with a one-button mouse. I love my iBook, but thank goodness for the 3-button support, as many audio apps especially use them all.
It is sad to note the passing of this pioneer. But the Mac UI as we know it has very little to do with Jef Raskin.
Raskin didn't "invent the Mac", he merely initiated the project. His original vision for the Mac was more along the lines of his Canon Cat. That all changed when Jobs took the project over and turned the Mac into "Lisa Jr".
I must confess I'm a bit surprised and disappointed at how effective Raskin's "I invented the Mac!" claims have been, even among slashdotters, who really ought to know better. A lot of posters here seem to have uncritically accepted his claims.
Read this for a bit of insight into Raskin's penchant for self promotion: I Invented Burrell
See also Andy Hertzfeld's take on who "invented the Mac".
Mister Raskin, thanks for what you have done, for changing the world of computing. The few who see how GUI computing started will remember you.
There are a lot of great stories on Andy Hertzfeld's folklore.org site about the early days of the Mac, including many of the inevitable personality conflicts that arise when you have a lot of folks working under a deadline to get a huge project shipped. A fascinating site - I read it end to end when I came across it.
My sense is that while Jef had the original vision for the Mac it was Burrell Smith who did much of the actual implementation. If the Mac must have a father, Burrell might be the better choice.
Here's the funniest take on the whole thing.
Sure, just like there's no Woz in my powerbook, or no Henry Ford in my car. Still...
Yet another hacker, after Bob Bemer in June 2004, has left this world. Sad.
Rest in peace, Jef.
Good lord, your post made my brain hurt.
First: Jef Raskin did not design the Mac UI. He wasn't even involved with he. Rather, he was the vision guy behind the Macintosh. He came up with the idea of an easy-to-use computer and convinced Apple's board to pursue it. When Steve Jobs took over the Macintosh project, Jef left. That was 1981, years before there was anything even like the Macintosh UI.
Second: The Mac UI was essentially identical to the Lisa UI. The key difference was that on the Mac the pixels were square. The user experience -- overlapping windows, the mouse, the menu bar --was exactly the same.
Well, you're partly wrong. Apple, Microsoft and Xerox all borrowed ideas from somewhere else (that isn't necessarily bad, you know ... it's what makes progress possible.) The real crime is trying to lock up good ideas forever. But in any event, I would say the real GUI pioneer was a man named Doug Englebart, whose remarkable demonstration in 1968 at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco really laid the groundwork for what we all think of as a modern computer. Behind that demo was six years of hard work by Englebart and seventeen others at the Standford Research Institute. It took a couple decades for those ideas to take off, but take off they did.
Just FYI, streaming video of the Englebart demo is available HERE if you can handle RealMedia.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The following documents provide a nice insight in the man's work at Apple on the Mac project:i ndex.html/
http://library.stanford.edu/mac/primary/docs/bom/
especially the article on Design Considerations (M4.1) makes a nice read:
"If the computer must be opened for any reason other than repair (for which our prospective user must be assumed incompetent) even at the dealer's, then it does not meet our requirements. Seeing the guts is taboo. Things in sockets is taboo (unless to make servicing cheaper without imposing too large an initial cost). Billions of keys on the keyboard is taboo. Computerese is taboo. Large manuals, or many of them (large manuals are a sure sign of bad design) is taboo. Self- instructional programs are NOT taboo.
There must not be a plethora of configurations. It is better to offer a variety of case colors than to have variable amounts of memory. It is better to manufacture versions in Early American, Contemporary, and Louis XIV than to have any external wires beyond a power cord.
And you get ten points if you can eliminate the power cord."
(may read 'IMHO' wherever omitted from above text)
There is truth to the rumor that he never got along with Jobs, although he was good friends with Woz.
Reality has a liberal bias
Here is the most recent interviews before he died. He is a very creative guy, that's for sure.
Creative Demolition
shush...
Good or nothing, as the saying goes about the deceased.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Would have sworn he was involved in UI -- must be because of his later exploits in interface design that got me mixed up. I stand corrected.
Jef Raskins work at Apple, with the Mac is well documented at www.folklore.org. The site created by Andy Hertzfeld has now been made into a book called Revolution in The Valley - a collection of esoteric stories that chronical the birth and development the Mac.
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
We'll remember you. And thanks for everything.
you had me at #!
We UI developers of various industries owe Jef their deepest gratitude. We also owe you, his family, our gratitude as well. Thank you for letting him work the long hours, for helping him endure what seemed like fruitless (no pun intended) meetings that probably frustrated him from time-to-time, and for listening to him rant aloud about his interface musings as he bored you for hours (don't the great ones often do that?).
I'm sure you realize how much Jef's work has affected, no, changed, our lives. Everyone in the modern world has been touched by Jef's work. Probably more so than most great artists of any genre. Not everyone likes the Beatles, but almost everyone has used a computer interface at work or at home that has been influenced by Mr. Raskin. The users, of course, don't think of Jef every time they click a dialog box, but society is different at every level because of his work. Computers are accessible and usable to almost everyone because not everyone understands what a "command line" is.
Our prayers, thoughts, and thanks for Jef Raskin and his family on this sad day. Godspeed Jef.
Sincerest thanks,
Users and User Interface Developers Everywhere
Raskin's vision was for an easy to use, CHEAP, computer for the everyman. It was actually quite different from what the Mac actually became. About the only credit he deserves in that regard is for the name (did you know the marketeers tried to change it to "Bicycle" ?!?) and for starting the project. The rest is pretty much to the credit of Jobs and the Mac team.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
truth.
and spearheaded not by Steve Jobs (he actually lobbied against the Mac project at one point)
It's interesting to think of what might have happened if the Mac had never come to fruition and Apple had just pursued the evolution of the Apple II line.
The coolest voice ever.
I think it has to do with the number of fingers on your hand.
In that case, why aren't five-button mice more popular?
The difference is, in the beginning the Mac software was designed for a mouse with one and only one button, and that hasn't changed much despite the fact that current software supports that second (and third, even) button. For the iMacs that people are only going to use for browsing the web, iTunes, and word processing, more buttons just won't get used. Maybe the answer would be to ship multi-button mice with the higher-grade power-user-oriented systems like the PowerMac G5, and stick with the single button mouse for the rest of them. (Still, it's certainly possible to plug in any old scroll mouse and use it just as easily as their one-button mouse, so it's pretty much a moot point anyway.)
Bears don't normally eat things that talk and move backwards.
Are you sure? Raskin claims to at least have created 'click and drag.'
Jef also opined on the source of aerodynamic lift, giving rise to airplane flight, with an explanation that runs counter to the traditional one based on the Bernoulli effect.
On this page, Jef discusses the Coanda effect, which is familiar to anyone who's been annoyed by water or juice running down the side of a pitcher (instead of getting into your glass). An interesting read, no matter your stake on the matter.
Every rule has an exception (except this one).
There's now a huge industry surrounding UI design and usability, I hope the entire community pays their respects.
Couldn't stand the weather
Words like "aggrandizing" and "arrogant" seem ill suited to a man quick to answer his email, even from unknowns like me. Anyone who doubts Raskin's contribution should pick up a copy of "The Humane Interface" and read it, and try to find anything to compare it with. After Doug Englebart, I don't know anyone who made a similar contribution to usability.
I never really owned a Mac, but every time i tried one (from the original Mac to the newer ones running OSX) i am floored by their user interface. When Apple jokes everyone steals UI ideas from them, they do it with reason.
My deepest condolences to his family and friends.
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.
Once again.. for the millionth time: it's not about copyright when you are dealing with brand names (like M[a]cIntosh), it's a trademark issue.
I think you guys missed Apple's tribute to Jeff
http://www.apple.com/thinkdifferent/
Raskin, whether you liked him or not, forced you to think about the issue of usability in the light of learnability, which are too often very separate things. It is possible for an interface to be hard to learn, yet very usable once you understand how it works, and god knows the opposite is also true. This is obviously not a very commercial idea, and possibly why he never got on with Steve Jobs.
Raskin knew that usability isnt just what looks good in the showroom, but what endures and helps the user once the eye candy has worn off. Very few have been prepared or able to make that leap.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
until someone empties the Trash.
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
You could try looking at these articles read all of them and you will see that the how process was iterative and dynamic it fed of previous work and innovated. It is worth noting that the developers never denied that they learnt from previous research. It is strange that some how the fact that every influence on a technology is not printed on the front of the box is some how seen as denying history, when actually its absence has more to expediency.
/ historical/inventingthelisauserinterface
/ historical/thelegacyofthelisa
/ historical/thelisauserinterface
/ historical/thexeroxaltocomputer
/ historical/designingthestaruserinterface
so here are the urls
http://www.aci.com.pl/mwichary/guidebook/articles
Note how modern the screen-shot at the top of the article looks, and also the columns like interface that was prototyped about 2/3 way down.
also see here about new features introduced by the lisa later used on the macintosh
http://www.aci.com.pl/mwichary/guidebook/articles
http://www.aci.com.pl/mwichary/guidebook/articles
on on the star (influence is obvious but that in no way takes away from the apple development teams achievements)
http://www.aci.com.pl/mwichary/guidebook/articles
http://www.aci.com.pl/mwichary/guidebook/articles
Also worth investigating is the development of a mass produceable mouse for the original mac (was on slashdot quite a wile ago not sure how long but may be over 2 years ago). It demonstrates that just because a mouse as a prototype exists making it into a usable commodity device involves quite a bit of invention and originality of thought.
Worth considering before you say people stole a concept.
Well, actually OS X has a BSD-layer, running on top of the Mach microkernel.
Regardless, McIntosh made some awesome tube amps.
I see a lot of comments here regarding whether Raskin was really the cornerstone of the Macintosh. I don't think any of US can really answer that, but it seems to me that Mr. Raskin fits Apple's definition:
Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They're not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They invent. They imagine. They heal.
They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that's never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
We make tools for these kinds of people.
While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
Sigh. It's very easy to find out the truth about this, yet still the myth persists. Xerox developed some of the GUI concepts (bitmapped display, windows, mouse input, buttons), but Apple were INVITED to view their work in return for investment in the company. What they saw inspired the Lisa and later Mac interface, but Apple added: overlapping moveable windows, pull down menus, the menu bar, mouse dragging, icons, self-refreshing windows, the entire direct manipulation interface for the file system (Finder), resources, drag and drop, and numerous other details that we take for granted today. None of these came from Xerox. Apple employed a number of engineers that started out at Xerox, and it's certain they brought their knowledge with them and extended it at Apple. Is that theft? If they didn't sign a contract forbidding use of intellectual property after leaving the company, then no. (And who ever had that in their contract in those days?). Apple overlooked one thing however, and that's the SmallTalk language - if they had brought object-oriented programming to the Mac along with the GUI concepts right from the start then perhaps Apple's place in history might have been even greater....
*mourn*
The precise nature of his illness was an open secret, but disclosure of such details should probably be left to the family. But trust me, it's the kind of cancer you probably least want to have.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
I dont know what hapens after we die , but if your out there somewhere then i hope this gets to you
Mr Raskin
The first computer i ever used was a zx spectrum , the first computer that ever made me feel pasionate about computing was a mac.
I myself am severly dyslexic and dysphraxic and during my younger years had great difficulty in schooling, had it not been for the mac in our school i feel i would still be marked slow , the interface allowed me to put my thoughts down so other people could understand , it allowed me to excell and fill in a void which would have crippled my education.
I owe you and your team alot as do many others who were in my situation.
so tonight i shall open a 12 year old speyside single malt and drink a glass to honour your memory.
Thank you for all you have done for the world
Gregg Taylor Kincaid
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
I should have pointed to references. I didn't expect to upset anyone. OS X has the Mach microkernel and the BSD source tree. For more info check OS X on Wikipedia.
I don't think "select" and "activate" would be easily understood by the kind of user the one button mouse was designed for. And the theory of simple, uncluttered design that Raskin cites here holds true -- writing on a mouse would not be helpful to anyone, I don't think. I personally use a 5 button mouse on my Mac but I understand and agree with the simple design philosophy that led to the one button mouse. For a power user, a 2+ button mouse makes sense, and they are cheap and they "just work" on a mac. But for the user who already has computer anxiety a one button mouse is perfect -- simple and clear; no confusion about what to push. Adding unclear words like "select" and "Activate" would not help at all, I think! Those who understand the difference don't need the writing on the mouse, and those who don't understand it will just find it more confusing.
my favorite jef raskin story:
n tosh&story=I_Invented_Burrell.txt&sortOrder=Sort%2 0by%20Date&detail=medium&search=jef%20raskin
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Maci
Whatever idea that you came up with, Jef Raskin had a tendency to claim that he invented it at some earlier point. That trait was the basis of Burrell's impersonation of Jef.
Jef had a slight stammer, which Burrell nailed perfectly. Burrell began by folding his fingers together like Jef and then exclaiming in a soft, Jef-like voice, "Why, why, why, I invented the Macintosh!"
Then Burrell would shift to his radio announcer voice, playing the part of an imaginary interviewer. "No, I thought that Burrell invented the Macintosh", the interviewer would object.
He'd shift back to his Jef voice for the punch line.
"Why, why, why, I invented Burrell!"
It is probably BS that the decision to name Apple Computers had anything to do with this, but the story about Turing is likely true, at least that is what is reported here, among other places.
Encyclopedia Britanica beat that update speed! (re: Wikipedia)
Setting his threshold to 5, Sparky eliminated most of the trolls on /.
I look forward to Apple's website reflecting Raskin's role more fully, perhaps reflecting some of the excellent material at Digibarn, including Jef's original review of the project in 1981. But the slowness of a Sunday response on the website should not be taken as evidence of lack of respect. After hearing that Jef also had pancreatic cancer, Steve Jobs reached out directly to him privately. The battles of twenty years ago do not need to still be re-fought; far more interesting is to support the Archy project, which Jef in his last days was trying to get to an alpha release. It would be a fitting tribute for Apple to step in with support, and incorporating some of Jef's recent work would make the Mac a much more efficient machine for many kinds of work. Time to coome together, and support and extend Jef's work as a tribute. db
Of course I'm not seriously making that argument -- it would be stupid. But that was Jef's argument taken to it's logical conclusion. What is wrong with CTRL-S? Is SHIFT-S bad too because it requires two keys? Maybe switching between upper and lower case should be a menu item? Yes, it's ridiculous. That's my point.
He would cite case study after case study of how people would take longer to recall and use a keyboard shortcut than to find the menu item. But he obviously wasn't studying people who knew their way around the program! I don't want computers designed only for newbies! Give them their menu items and give me my shortcuts. I know what I'm doing.
Admittedly, if they're inconsistent, like on Windows, the utility goes down. But even there if you spend much of your time in one or two applications (most people do) it's still better once you learn them.
On the Mac, where the shortcuts are pretty damn consistent (every program I use follows the same conventions) it is a dream.
Of course you want menu items too -- but I couldn't bear listening to him claim that I'd be better off reaching for the mouse and hunting for a close button or selecting File -> New a thousand times a day rather than including it in my 80WPM typing routine.
Cheers.
it was because his ideas on human interface were based on sound principles, and he really did know what he was talking about.
I agree -- he did have a lot of solid ideas. But I also take exception at many of the studies he would cite. Despite being a strong proponent of the scientific method myself, I believe you have to make sure you're looking at the right things in the right way or you can end up with invalid data that looks valid. And sometimes intuition will be a better guide in those cases.
Still, respect to Jef for the many good things he brought to the table.
Cheers.
Alright: he was certainly a pioneer in the field of UI, and despite anything personal I didn't like about the guy, his advocacy of proper UI design has made my life better.
Thanks Jef.
For 12 years I was a slave in the land of DOS, unable to do anything with my computer, constantly living in fear of it, constantly limited in my ability to do anything I wanted to because I couldn't deal with cryptic, ridiculous commands. Until the macintosh set me free.
Jef, you are the original Free Software pioneer. While others like Stallman may have promoted freedom for the programmer to modify code, you promoted freedom for the everyday person to use their computer.
While you may have LEAPed beyond this existence familiar to us all, and for some things there is no undo, others will carry on your work and fight for that which you held dear.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
Uh, moderators? Parent is not a troll! Check your facts!
... from a Mac User
I'm glad you were here.
Thanks for all you've done. You truly are missed man.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Me: Please right click on the desktop.
User: What's a right click?
Me: Press down the right button on the mouse. A Menu should appear.
How does twenty years change the fact that a two button mouse button is harder to use than a one button mouse for a total computer illiterate?
Here's a couple tips for you:
1. If you are involved in computer UI design, do some web design for a while. Then tell us that right click menus are necessary.
2. Calling users "idiots" because they cannot figure out an unintuitive interface is anti-social and it will not make you popular with the ladies.
Gawd bloody f'ing geeks. Grow up, move out of your parent's basement and develop some empathy for the "normals" for crying out loud.
I happen to use a two button+scroll with my powerbook at my desktop but I get by just fine with one button on the trackpad because the UI is designed to work with one button. There is always a main menu item for each context menu item.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Adele Goldberg, but she didn't invent the GUI any more than Henry Ford invented the automobile.
Writers imply. Readers infer.
Sown up?
Sewn up?
Words mean things.
Fucking idiots.
Writers imply. Readers infer.
The bitten apple is a tribute to the late, great, Alan Turing (google: "apple logo turing" for info)
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
And it's entirely fitting that he be one, of course. Cranks with wild ideas are, after all, the ones who "think different."
I see a great need for a Jef Raskin "Think Different" poster.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
This is a little freaky. Jobs and Raskin, rivals for the title of father of the Macintosh, both get pancreatic cancer... which is rare to begin with... and usually a death sentence.
Raskin dies of it, Jobs lives...
I'm not sure exactly what it means, but it must mean something.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Jef was my hero.
I admire some other guys, but no one as much as Jef.
Bullshit.
It was Raskin who pushed for the use of bitmapped displays (even Wozniak, let alone Jobs, had a hard time being convinced to depart from character generators). He proposed them as early as 1969 (sixty-nine) in his PhD dissertation. That's even before PARC got created. Jobs was probably still wetting his bed in 1969.
It was Raskin who had to convince Jobs to visit PARC.
It was Raskin who simplified PARC's cumbersome three-button mouse interface to the point that only one button was required. And he was actually still not quite happy with the mouse as an input device.
What were you saying?
One of the first emails I sent was to Jef Raskin, applauding his work after doing some reading on human interface. He sent me back a very nice letter, and man, was I suprised. So long Jef, and thanks.
"You know why you do not see me styling wit my homies? Because I have no homies!!" -Mojo Jojo
Pancreatic will whack you that fast, and it's almost untreatable, so that would be my guess.
That's completely untrue as the other posters have said, but I also heard that story on the tour around Bletchley Park - the center of the British code-breaking people of WWII.
When I heard it, I found it funny that their own history contradicts that very tenuous link: when Apple was named, the code-breaking efforts of the Bletchley Park geniuses were still mostly secret, and the story of Alan Turing was very unlikely to be known by a couple of Atari employees in California.
(If they had, "Colossus" - the world's first codebreaking computer - would have been a great name for the original Mac!)
I think the misinformation stems from the amateur historians desperate to somehow get Bletchley linked to the wider world. It's an amusing anecdote, but a bit silly.
By the way, if you're in Britain, pay a visit to the place. It's pretty interesting.
You are really short changing Jef. He deserves more credit than what you are saying. Second, it was Steve Jobs who wanted to change the name to Bicycle. And at that time it was just a code name - not a product name. Marketing has virtual no power over R&D code names - nor would they care about code names.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
First, Jef was not fired from Apple. Jef quit.
Second, Jef was important enough at Apple that he was approached by senior management (I believe it was Michael Scott) to create a video game system and was able to convince them to do the Mac project instead. He also ran their publications group. He started a tradition of execellence in that group that continues today.
Third, many of the ideas that ultimately made it into the Mac came from Jef. For example, Jef was the person who thought of the idea of rounded rectangles being an important graphics primitive in the Mac.
Fourth, Jef was important enough at Apple to have been granted enough stock to make him a millionaire when the Apple IPO occurred. In fact, Jef quickly liquidated his stock because he felt like the day to day shift in the stock price was distracting him from his work. Jobs saw this as a "lack of commitment" to Apple which is part of why they did not get along well. Also, both Jef and Steve were trying to boss the same project. However, many of the "Steve" ideas really came from Jef.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
I grew up in a major fruit producing town in Michigan. McIntosh apples that are stored through the winter are not very good, if you get them in season they are quite good. Much more flavor than the pretty looking Red Delicious. Personally I like Paula Reds for eating. And a mix of Golden Delicious and Granny Smiths for pies. McIntosh is good in a pie too, but they can get a little runny if don't put a little extra flour in with the filling.
I suspect McIntosh is popular because they have this perfect texture for eating fresh. And they are probably the messiest(you ever had an apple where you had juice just rolling down your chin? Probably a McIntosh).
ps- I'll miss Jef, I've chatted with him a bit and also worked with him and enjoyed his talks at SVFIG. He was a brilliant guy with many interests.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Compared to other computers in their day, the Macintosh *was* Inexpensive.
Nowadays, the Macintosh is still an inexpensive personal computer, but other Personal Computers are Cheap, and make the Macintosh *appear* expensive. Keep in mind that these cheaper computers are "cheaper" in respect to the quality too.
Jef raskin dies of pancreatic cancer, Steve Jobs was diagnosed late last year and whisked off to hospital also for pancreatic cancer - If I were andy hertzfeld, i'd be off getting tested. could this be a mac founder's curse? of course not - all a coincidence. nothing to see here folks, move along.
I used to have a better sig than this, but I got tired of it
When the 128k mac shipped, the signatures of the people who created it were molded on the inside of the case. Here's the collection; Jef's name in the bottom-left corner.
That's probably the best mention Apple gave Raskin - his name's inside every 128k and 512k mac.
I play Nerd-Folk!
I dont get it. He died of cancer just after few months???
...
First, "cancer" is a broad term covering hundreds of different diseases.
Second, different cancers advance at different rates.
Third, different cancers have the tendency to "hide" longer in the human body, developing "silently" and by the time they are symptomatic, and hence discovered, they are much closer to the point of causing the patient's demise.
Fourth, even a cancer spreading at the same rate as another can have more drastic effects on the body. Think for example of something pressing on your calf, vs. something pressing on the breathing control center of your brain.
Fifth, often cancer doesn't "follow the rules" and will act completely differently in one patient than oncologists expect.
I'm glad your brother in law was able to be at the other end of that last spectrum. Keep in mind that means that his extended life implies that for the average to be an average, someone else in his situation died sooner-than-estimated.
I'm posting this anonymously since I have advanced cancer myself, but don't choose to disclose my medical situation in a public seting such as this.
His wife should be ashamed because she obviously didnt encourage him to seek treatment. And this is not a troll. I speak from experience
You speak from either malice or ignorance. What you say is both hurtful and shameful.
I hope this anonymous reply is modded up higher than whatever level your comment reaches, so that none who do not know better are influenced by your vicious words.
And at that time it was just a code name - not a product name. Marketing has virtual no power over R&D code names - nor would they care about code names.
:) And thats actually an acronym for somneone... tho a very forced one :) Id seriously doubt if it would retain this name if it saw the light of the marketing dept.
Correct. Im someone who works in R&D one of the projects I work on is called Madcows
Today Jef Raskin invented yet another important user interface, allowing human beings to communicate with the afterworld for the first time ever.
Which computer illiterates? The ones that will be dead in 10-15 years?
In October 1979 as I was being shown Bandley III for the first time, I had the striking memory of seeing the writer Steve Clark's office embrasured with a passel of fold-together cardboard widgets which I was told Jef had designed, just for fun.
After Apple went public he bought a Bentley(!), which for Cupertino-Palo Alto was still a novelty among the technouveau riche.
For me Jef was the spiritual prototype for John Percival Hackworth, the Victorian nanotech engineer.
Rest in peace and see you in version 2.0, Jef.
[1] Of which there are two perfectly good ones nearby, and I had wanted to transmit a left click event, I would have pressed the one on the left, thanks all the same.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
My father has been working with computers ever since the 512K Mac. He's an Excel formula wizard, he surfs the web effortlessly, he even knows a fairly big part of programming principles and he handles Windows and Mac OS X equally good. He can't tell Sponsored Ads from the search results at Google, though.
It's foolish to assume that everyone who know how to start up a computer will even begin to realize why there are two buttons on a mouse. (To perform two different functions.) Why computer cases need to be so big. (For cooling purposes and to be able to fit new parts, and because the motherboard is so big.) Why Linux is so complicated to them. (Because it wasn't designed to be easy to them.) There are people here even who don't understand why Word has so many features! (Because a) Microsoft needs to sell upgrades and b) it may be true that you only use 20% of the features, but when tens of millions of people each have a different 20% set, it adds up.)
There will be computer illiterates for as long as there will be computers, just as there will be computer problems while there are computer solutions. How many percent of the population do you think have your kind of capabilities? My guess is lower than 20%.
I believe Raskin made a lot of sense, while he did abuse the word "invent" a bit too much for my tastes.
Finally, I'll have to disagree with one point in the grandparent post - not all things are accessible via a choice in the main menu. It's supposed to be that way, and it's a good way, but it's not necessarily true as the situation stands today even in the Finder.
I hope someone at the Raskin centre knows the answer to this http://jef.raskincenter.org/humor/alien_arithmetic .html
, or was it just a hoax all along :-(
rt
I don't think they overlooked it as much as they had trouble implementing other, basic programming in the first place. The technical limits were relatively tight during development and from what I've heard it took insane amounts of effort to get it to the point where it could ship on schedule in the first place. I'm not saying it couldn't have been done - but I'm also saying that a good object-oriented library is hard to built from the start. It took NeXT several years on more modern hardware with far less restrictions, and Apple really needed the Mac out when they released it.
One of Jeff's ideas was that *search* was a fundamental operation of computing. He dedicated a keyboard key called LEAP to this function to avoid the confusion of swithcing to a search mode.
In some respect Google Desktop and perhaps web serach engines themselves are the latest implementation of this concept.
For some reason Golden Delicious grown in Europe or even on the West coast taste like stryofoam. On the East coast they have a honey-like flavor. (different climate I guess?) And when cooked they have a nice contrasting texture against the granny smiths. It's makes for a sweet and mellow pie. Bramleys are almost unheard of in the US, and I suspect they prefer the climate of the UK. Hot summers and long cool spring and fall is the kind of weather we have to contend with. It's an excellent climate for nearly all peaches and certain varieties of apples.
But ultimately I would recommend that you make apple pie out of whatever apples are available locally. Apples that are shipped 1000 miles simply aren't as flavorful. The trick is the find either a sweet and tart variety that grows in your area or simple mix two varieties to get the same result.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Rest in Peace.
Slashdotters, I have been working with the Raskins for several years to document Jef's life and work for the DigiBarn Computer Museum. I have turned Jef's page at the museum site into a memorial page for him. See what Jef was all about (more than just GUIs) at:
Jef Raskin: A Life of Design and the rest of the DigiBarn is of relevance to this topic at:
DigiBarn Computer Museum
Thanks!
Bruce Damer, Curator
I suppose the term "Mac Daddy" would be inappropriate here.
While I'm at it, wasn't it a master's thesis, not a phd dissertation?
hawk
I've often wondered if emacs is really a microsoft producct.
Think about it, it
1) requires all currently available resources, and then some [1]
2) Tries to do absolutely everything.
3) Is downright hostile to all other existing standards.
However, I decided that it wasn't, as it is missing #4)
4) Crashes a lot.
hawk
[1] OK, it's much better about this today, but historically it started with massive demands which grew just as fast as machines added resources.
A true pioneer of modern computing is gone.
Find funky gifts
Mr. Raskin died of pancreatic cancer. Isn't that what Steve Jobs was treated for as well but just not the fatal form??? Interesting coincidence huh....What is going on at One Cupertino Drive. A toast to a very productive life!
Do you want to know why OS X is still easy to use? They alpha test it with execs like Steve Jobs. Mr. Jobs was one of the main testers for Keynote and look how great it turned out.
Why is it so difficult for my fellow IT geeks to understand that a UI should be easy enough for a CEO to use? You people just don't "get it". There is nothing wrong with offering power features to power users as long as everything remains accessible to the average user and new users through other means.
You really should follow my advice to do some serious website development before tackling desktop UI work. I did website development for a number of years before entering into the windows desktop realm. None of the inhouse windows software I write makes use of any right clicks or cryptic key combinations.
It saddens me that most developers on window are totally clueless when it comes to getting inside the head of users. Well designed software should require minimal documentation for a totally uninitiated user to use it.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Steve Jobs, is that you? :-)
It's hard to tell between strong opinion and a solid troll these days, but I'd go with the opinion part. Yes, Jef Raskin hated everything the Mac stood and still stands for. That's visionaries for you...
It's strange what death does to your opponents. I wrote strongly about how I hated Raskin's Humane Interface, but now I feel all bad about it. It's not that I disrepected him or his lifetime achievement. I just didn't agree. Anyone here feel the same?
Bottom of google.com has a line for Jef.
Make your computer faster: rm -rf
Apple overlooked one thing however, and that's the SmallTalk language - if they had brought object-oriented programming to the Mac along with the GUI concepts right from the start then perhaps Apple's place in history might have been even greater....
k .html. The early Squeak VM ran painfully slow on my old mac, let alone trying to cram it in an early 68000 mac with small roms, little memory, and floppies. To be honest, back then I wouldn't want it taking up space on a 20 meg HD.
Object-Orientated Programming was not pragmatic at the time, early development was assembler, then MPW pascal. Hypercard really brought SmallTalk's goal of programming to everyone (especially education). And it had a huge impact for Apple.
SmallTalk wouldn't mature for quite some time. See http://users.ipa.net/~dwighth/squeak/oopsla_squea
BTW, squeak was started by some of the above noted Xerox employees who migrated into Apple's ATG.
Other than seeing him on TechTV a few months ago, I didn't know much about Raskin until he died and I had a chance to do some research.
I've found that many of his ideas are sneaking back into computing. Take for instance the 1987 Canon Cat computer. One of its highlighted features was a way to quickly find files by using search strings instead of icons or hyperlinks.
When you think about Google suite of applications, Apple's upcomming Spotlight, and similar features boasted in MS Longhorn, it seems that this style of thinking was ahead of its time.
Well I'm pretty good with my thumb, index finger, and middle finger. My ring finger and little finger are much less agile. Doing double duty with my index finger, I could use an extra button by my thumb. Four buttons would be sufficent.
I had spoken to Jef about the current Mac OS X and his work, and his book over e-mail, He was a very nice man and had a clear mission : To make computers easier to use.
He was an interface designer who had the real knowledge of what interface design actually is, something that today's designers easily forget.
A month or two before Jef passed away, I bought his interface design book which I highly recommend to anyone interested.
Jef is a person who should never be forgotten .