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Rest in peace Jef !
You will always be in our hearts and minds.

A true loss; My heart goes out to all of his friends and family. He was on my short list of "people I would love to have a long conversation with".

Magic Word "life"

Jef was instrumental in the development of the Macintosh, and he will be missed..

I always got the impression that Jef was a little stuck up whenever he'd talk about the Mac or his influence on User Interfaces, but his involvement in starting the Macintosh project at Apple was, IMO, one of the biggest moments in computer history. If you get a chance to, go to folklore.org and read the stories there. It will be a nice way to remember his impact in the world of computers. He will be missed.

Don't know too much about Jeff but everytime I heard about him, he was saying something to bash the current state of the Machintosh and OS X. While alive I couldn't say I liked him, but would have never wished Death upon him, I would actually would have liked to see what he was about to come up with, maybe the computer interface could have been more advanced! you know what competition does. Rest in peace, your place in history will live on forever

How tragic! I still have emails from him (yes, he's one of those folks who actually write back!) concerning THE and other matters. I'd told him next time I was in NoCal I'd drop by and say hi.... Guess I should have done it earlier!

Very sad indeed.....

While one is (or should be) saddened by the death of anyone not completely evil, it's frustrating to see the headlines. If Jef Raskin has gotten his way, the macintosh would have been the canon pet, and we know how successful that one. Jef Raskin quit Apple of the direction the Mac project took and the computer we all love today would not exist if the self proclaimed "father of the macintosh" had actually run the project.

What's frustrating about the MDN headline, Paco, if anything? It doesn't say "Father of the Mac" or anything like that. I think it's just right. Raskin did name the Mac and he was a "GUI pioneer." Or are you just upset that Raskin's death is generating headlines?

Jef Raskin R.I.P.

Goodbye, Jef.

Jef will be missed...Apple needs to say something, he's about as important an employee as the come.

MDN Magic word: Top, as in top of the class.

Jef Raskin will be remembered as one of the true pioneers of computing and he will be missed. It's not just about what computers can do, it's what ordinary folks can do with them, and his work with human interfaces opened our eyes to the possibilities. My deepest condolences to his family and friends.

Jef could most certainly be the 'Father of the Macintosh', and of course Steve would be the 'Daddy'.

Little 'Mac' also had a lot of aunts and uncles who participated in it's early development .

It also had many friends help it up through it's teen and early twenty-something years.

As history will see it, Jef's contribution to the Mac was - no more, or no less - exactly the correct amount.

(How's that for tap-dancin' on the pinhead of any notion of 'fate' )

Oh, and uh...

Goodbye, Jef. Thanks for being with us.

Paco you are a fsckin moron

Here's to the Craziest One

The Person that Thought Different, enough to begin the McIntosh and the Cat.

You certainly made a Dent in the Universe that will be felt for 100's of years.

Rest in Peace Jef

Click

Whatever might be said of Jef, he is responsible for the single most important aspect of the Mac philosophy...that computers should be designed from the interface out. This singular idea, I consider to be the heart of the Mac and the real differentiator of the Mac from other systems. Though OS X can hardly be said to be a true incarnation of this philosophy, Apple still maintains the highest repsect for the user interface and the human experience. I credit both Jef and Steve Jobs for this commitment.

I have a Jef Raskin story, and a couple of thoughts

I heard him speak on some panel at a conference in San Francisco. I am fairly sure it was at a West Coast Computer Faire in the 80's.

So anyway, Jef was going on, making comparisons between computers and household appliances. He said something along the lines of "look how easy it is to use a washing machine, computers should be like that!". It was all I could do, scrappy early 20's pup that I was, from bolting up and yelling "yeah, but when was the last time you tried to do your taxes with your washing machine!". I maintained...

I always appreciated the fact that Jef and others were trying to make things easier to use, but, I always wanted to diplomatically say "hey, the tasks that require some thinking are never going to be thoroughly easy". If the user isn't willing to learn a little, then you dramatically limit what can be done in a UI. On the other hand, I am very glad that it was Jef that had an imprint on the Mac, and not Ted Nelson!

So bye Jef. Many respect your work, and that's a great legacy. You'll be missed.

The black apple of mourning will be worn today, to heck with the dress code at work.

We lost one of the movers and shakers. 61 is pretty young too. Does anyone know what kind of cancer it was?

Here's wishing you all the best in your new adventure, Jef.

A light went out,
its heat remains.

Must have been the lack of firewire cable in his new iPod box that did it...

Let's remember Jef for his incredible contributions, to the Macintosh (the original idea and the first three years were all Jef's), user interfaces (where he has gone well beyond the Mac in his thinking), and his music, art, and generosity.

Old battles over credit and egos just aren't interesting anymore.

db

Folklore.org has about as much information about Jef Raskins contributions to the Mac as anyone, and all straight from coworkers.

Try reading "I Invented Burrell."

Jef spirit lives on the people he inspired so to that effect he is not truly gone. Another reason for us to do out bit to inspire others -immortality

Thank you sincerely Mr. Raskin for all your contributions to society, and for your wonderful idea to name the computer after both our favorite eatin' apple!

I was looking forward to THE, I've recieve the news letters. I am truly shock since I had no idea he was sick.

Excerpt from an interview with Jef Raskin by Ubiquity.
(http://jef.raskincenter.org/published/ubiquity.html)

UBIQUITY: Have you written a book on your experiences there [at Apple]?

RASKIN: Well, it hasn’t seen the light of day, and won't until I finish the more technical books I am currently writing. It’s called “The Mac and Me.”

UBIQUITY: Does it have a story? A moral?

RASKIN: It the story of how I came to have enough information in my head to design such a thing (and of the many people who guided me), and how I came to learn to put human needs ahead of technical concerns. It's about the things that gave a strong humanitarian and altruistic direction to my life and a lack of interest in making money for its own sake. My parents were a great inspiration; in the 1950s they risked their livelihoods to defend racial equality -- this was before Martin Luther King's prominence and the famous civil rights movement. They achieved some of their goals for our town, but we were boycotted by the white community, lost our family business, and had to move a step down from the middle class. But there was no iota of regret in our household, the moral victory was ours and I have the additional satisfaction that the equality we joined the fight to achieve, if not complete, is far greater today than it was then.

Sad to hear that Jef died (from pancreatic cancer)-he was one of the people behind the orginal Mac.

Thanks for everything, Jef!

From "the rest of us"...

A.A. where did you find out that Jeff had pancreatic cancer?


This is total irony. Steve Jobs (fortunately) gets a rare form of pancreatic that can be cured if found earlier enough. Jeff Raskin (sadly) gets the more common form of pancreatic cancer that is eventually fatal.

God bless you Jeff.

What is even more amazing than the machine the original Mac was, is the incredible pool of talented and insightful people who crashed into each other and produced such an amazing work. Jeff Raskin was only one part, albeit a large one, of an amazing group that gave us the Mac.
A great mind that is finally at rest. The big question is who will come along and follow in his footsteps.

Thank you Mr. Raskin. (I always liked the way "Raskin" sounds like "rascal".) I didn't know he hired Bill Atkinson. A former student. The quality of the teacher is reflected in his students (and who he chooses as employees.) The reason I can do a lot w/this machine (and perhaps the intricate thing that con be done with Newton and a SCREENLESS iPod) is in the ideas and passion he brought with him. Think Different indeed.

Weird. I posted on some other board this weekend about how frustrating ALL versions of M$Word are to work with compared to true Mac designed WPs. Think I quoted something of his from Whole Earth Software Catalog 2.0. Something like "You should be able to see your work, not the interface." MacWrite and others like WriteNow accomplished that far better than Word.

Fare thee well, you Racsal!

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
HST

How sad. Raskin was quite a character and he will be missed. One of the larger, more exciting, and unique characters to pass through Apple's doors, and certainly one of the most instrumental for molding the modern computing experience.

His family should be very proud of the legacy he left behind. He's one of the few people in the world who can honestly say that they made a difference.

A man who's contributions to technology and humanity will not be soon forgotten.

Thanks for everything Jeff, and our best goes out to you and your family.

As an old friend once said:

"God calls home the best ones first"

Blast: I wrote a 30,000 MSc thesis about the GUI largely on the basis of Raskin's inspiration (http://members.maclaunch.com/richmond) - although going even more graphical rather than more textual.

He's the guy who kept me awake at nights with my brain churning - and no he's gone!