APPRECIATION
Jef Raskin, brains behind the user-friendly Macintosh
Early Apple developer wanted computers built for people, not just for programs
- Benny Evangelista, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 1, 2005
Jef Raskin was known as the "father of the Macintosh'' for his early work designing what became Apple Computer Inc.'s signature product and the start of the personal computer revolution.
But even in his final days, Raskin held fast to his belief that computers are still not as easy to operate as they could be and worked to design more "humane'' ways for people to use PCs.
Raskin, 61, died Saturday in his Pacifica home of pancreatic cancer just days before the scheduled release of his latest project, a computer operating environment nicknamed "Archy'' that promises to do away with time-wasting applications and unnecessary mouse movements.
"It was a race nearly to the end,'' Raskin's son Aza Raskin said Monday. "Jef was working on Archy until he really couldn't type anymore. That was around a week ago.''
Raskin, who was a mathematician, musician, professor, bicycle racer and model airplane builder, was diagnosed with the disease in December.
Apple historians note that Raskin, who joined the Cupertino firm in 1978 as its 31st employee, began working on a proposal in March 1979 for Apple to construct an inexpensive computer tailored to the way humans would operate it instead of how the device processed applications.
Raskin assembled a design team and named the project after his favorite variety of apple, although with a slight change in the spelling of the McIntosh.
The Macintosh computer, Raskin said in a 2004 interview with The Chronicle, "helped catalyze a total change in the way computers were used.''
Raskin even proposed the company start an "Apple Computer Network'' to connect the computers and give them more appeal to average consumers who could use them to send birthday greetings, check stock quotes, look up television guides, check travel information and for computer dating.
"Jef was the first person at Apple to be passionate about usability, and we all learned a lot from him,'' said Andy Hertzfeld, a key architect of the original Macintosh operating system software. "He always reminded us that people were far more important than computers, and to always keep the user in the center of our thinking.''
But the Macintosh that Apple introduced in 1984 was "vastly different'' than the one Raskin envisioned, said Owen Linzmayer, author of the book "Apple Confidential.'' That's because Apple co-founder and current Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs, bumped from the company's high-end Lisa computer project, took over the Macintosh project in 1981 and "pushed it in the direction he wanted it to go.''
The two clashed over the design areas such as Jobs' insistence on using a computer mouse, while Raskin advocated a joystick type of device, Linzmayer said.
Raskin left the company in 1982 and formed his own firm called Information Appliance, which eventually developed a computer called the Canon Cat marketed by Canon. About 20,000 Canon Cats were sold before the company terminated sales in an internal dispute, according to a biography released by Raskin's family.
Raskin continued to study how people interacted with computers and in a book released in 2000 called "The Human Interface,'' wrote about the field of "cognetics,'' or the ergonomics of the mind.
"One of his biggest legacies after the Mac is turning interface design into an engineering discipline,'' said his son, Aza Raskin, 21, who was working with his father to develop the new Archy computer program. The program -- named after a fictional cockroach in an early 20th century newspaper column -- is designed to work with any operating system. It eliminates the desktop seen on computer screens and other "useless'' features such as dialogue boxes, Aza Raskin said.
Jef Raskin had hoped to release the prototype of Archy today. But Aza Raskin said he and the design team are still planning to release the project sometime this month.
Jef Raskin insisted on continuing his work to the end. "He said, 'I don't want pity or anything else, I just want to work and get my ideas out,' '' Aza Raskin said.
In addition to his son, Jef Raskin is survived by his wife of 23 years, Linda Blum, and children Aviva and Aenea. Plans for a memorial service are pending.
E-mail Benny Evangelista at
bevangelista@sfchronicle.com.
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