Bill Atkinson architect of the Mac’s graphical soul, dies at 74

[maflynn]

As the title states, one of the major players of the Macintosh has passed away.

Ars Link detailing the passing

On Thursday, pioneering computer engineer and Apple veteran William "Bill" Atkinson died of pancreatic cancer at his home in Portola Valley, California, surrounded by family. He was 74. "We regret to write that our beloved husband, father, and stepfather Bill Atkinson passed away," his family wrote on Facebook. "He was a remarkable person, and the world will be forever different because he lived in it."

 

[vkd]

Birth, death, disease and old age -- Samsara. Nobody wants any of it but it comes to us all. Intelligence is making steps to get out of samsara.

 

[RandomDSdevel]

I'm surprised there hasn't been a MacRumors article about this yet. It's been all over the Internet:

• Ars Technica, as linked above in the OP by its author
• Engadget
• AppleInsider
• 9to5Mac
• MacDailyNews
• Daring Fireball
• TechCrunch
• The Verge
• WIRED
• The New York Times

(Probably not an exclusive list, either, naturally; this is just the first handful of links I could find from Google.)

 

[crlosg2]

Really sad day for old school Apple fans.
Having read and enjoyed so much the tales of the original Macintosh over at Folklore.org from Bill Atkinson, Andy Hertzfeld and everyone involved, it feels like we really knew him.
Great engineer and all around great guy.
May he rest in peace.

 

[G5isAlive]

Really sad day for old school Apple fans.
Having read and enjoyed so much the tales of the original Macintosh over at Folklore.org from Bill Atkinson, Andy Hertzfeld and everyone involved, it feels like we really knew him.

Yep, that's me, old school. I didn't read about the days of Bill Atkinson, I lived them with his first 128 k Mac. It's why I get so frustrated at the current crop of Apple customers whining about fingerprints while criticizing Apple for losing its soul. It's still there if you look deeper like Bill Atkinson did.