![]() ![]() There's no doubt that Jef was the creator of the Macintosh project at Apple, and that his articulate vision of an exceptionally easy to use, low cost, high volume appliance computer got the ball rolling, and remained near the heart of the project long after Jef left the company. Most of his ideas for the new machine were collected in a set of papers he called "The Book of Macintosh". He presented his idea for an ultra low cost, easy to use appliance computer to Mike Markkula in March 1979, and got the go-ahead to hire a few people and form an official research project later in September 1979, naming it Macintosh, after his favorite kind of eating apple. ![]() In early 1979, after successfully building an outstanding pubs department, Jef turned the reins over to Phyllis Cole and started thinking about what it would take for personal computers to expand beyond the current hobbyist market, writing up his ideas in a series of short papers. Apple liked the Basic manual so much that they hired Jef and Brian to be founders of their internal publications group. Jef was a former professor at UCSD (of both computer science and music) who started at Apple in January 1978 as Apple employee #31, after contracting to write Apple's manual for Basic with his friend Brian Howard, at their consulting firm named Bannister and Crun (a playful name appropriated from the Goon Show). Some people felt bad that they weren't included, and it was obvious that there was no good way to draw the line.īut if you look up the phrase "Father of the Macintosh" on Google, you get lots of links mentioning the initiator of the project, Jef Raskin. For the launch publicity, Steve Jobs anointed seven of us (not counting himself) as the official "design team", but it could just as easily have been five or fifteen. The Macintosh was more of a team effort, with at least a half dozen people making significant, invaluable contributions. ![]() But even Woz required help from Rod Holt for the analog electronics (the Apple II's switching power supply was almost as innovative as the digital board) and Steve Jobs and Jerry Manock for the industrial design (ditto for the plastic case).īy the 1980s, things had gotten more complicated. Steve Wozniak is indisputably the father of the Apple II, having designed the entire digital board himself as well as writing all of the system software, including a BASIC interpreter, most of it before Apple was even incorporated. In the early days of the personal computer industry, breakthrough products could still be created single-handedly, or by very small teams. ![]()
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