Pioneering Apple engineer Invoice Atkinson dies at 74

Invoice Atkinson, an engineer who performed a key function within the growth of the Macintosh and different landmark Apple merchandise, has died of pancreatic most cancers. 

After Atkinson’s household introduced his passing on Fb, Wired’s Steven Levy offered an outline of Atkinson’s many accomplishments as Apple worker quantity 51 . Along with the Macintosh, the Apple initiatives he both created or contributed to incorporate the Lisa pc, QuickDraw, the Magic Slate (a precursor of the iPad), and HyperCard (a precursor to the World Huge Net).

Atkinson, who was 74, ultimately turned obsessed with nature pictures and, when he was identified with most cancers final yr, wrote on Fb that he had “already led an incredible and fantastic life.”

In a put up on X, Apple CEO Tim Cook dinner described Atkinson as “a real visionary whose creativity, coronary heart, and groundbreaking work on the Mac will ceaselessly encourage us.” And Daring Fireball’s John Gruber wrote that “with no hyperbole,” Atkinson “might nicely have been the very best pc programmer who ever lived.”