William D. “Bill” Atkinson of Apple fame died on June 5 due to complications from pancreatic cancer. He was 74.
His family posted the news on a FaceBook post, saying that he passed away at home in Portola Valley, California, surrounded by family. Atkinson is survived by his wife, two daughters, stepson, stepdaughter, two brothers, four sisters, and his dog, Poppy.
Atkinson worked at Apple Computer from 1978 to 1990. Among his noteworthy include Macintosh QuickDraw the Menu bar, the selection lasso, MacPaint, and Hypercard. The latter was his claim to fame.
HyperCard is a software application and development kit for the Macintosh and Apple IIGS computers. It is among the first successful hypermedia systems predating the Web.
HyperCard was originally released in 1987 for $49.95 and was included free with all new Macs sold afterwards.[1] It was withdrawn from sale in March 2004, having received its final update in 1998 upon the return of Steve Jobs to Apple.
As noted by AppleInsider, Atkinson was Apple Employee No. 51, recruited by Jobs. Atkinson was one of the 30 team members to develop the first Macintosh, but also was principle designer of the Lisa’s graphical user interface (GUI), a novelty in computers at the time.
Blogger John Gruber calls Atkinson “One of the great heroes in not just Apple history, but computer history.”
Here’s a note from the Facebook post by his family: “We will miss him greatly, and he will be missed by many of you, too. He was a remarkable person, and the world will be forever different because he lived in it. He was fascinated by consciousness, and as he has passed on to a different level of consciousness, we wish him a journey as meaningful as the one it has been to have him in our lives.”
Rest in peace, Bill.
