![]() ![]() "Jef could have stayed on if he hadn't gone against Steve. "Jef Raskin and Steve Jobs both have large egos," recalled Dan Kottke, another member of the development team. And with Jobs on board, the project soon got the funding needed to create an actual product. That was fine with Raskin, because he understood that it is primarily through software that users interact with computers. Jobs took over the hardware side, leaving Raskin in charge of software and documentation. Casting around for another outlet for his energies, Jobs seized on Raskin's Macintosh project. When he became convinced that it would work, and that it would be an exciting new product, he started to take over."ĭuring a corporate restructuring, Jobs was removed from his job heading up the Lisa project. "He ran around saying 'No! No! It'll never work.' He was one of the Macintosh's harshest critics, and he was always putting it down at board meetings. Steve Wozniak, Apple's co-founder, also worked part time on early prototypes. Over time, he gained a few helpers, including Bill Atkinson, a former student of Raskin's who was working on software for the Lisa, and Burrell Smith, a repairman in the Apple II maintenance department who designed some of the early hardware. At first, Raskin had the support of Apple's board and a few low-level engineers, but little else. In addition to his son, he is survived by his wife, Linda Blum, and daughters Aviva, Aenea and Rebecca.Raskin began sketching basic ideas for a computer for the "person in the street," or PITS for short. Raskin, who dropped the second F from his first name early in his career, insisted that his children call him Jef, to underscore that he was their friend as well as their father. Some of his work was shown at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. He also created works of sculpture that reflected his sense of humor, such as a piece of glass decorated with suction-cup darts, which he called “Objet Dart.” He performed on the recorder, rebuilt and installed an entire Swiss pipe organ in his home and taught electronic music and other subjects at UC San Diego before joining Apple. Raskin was known as an accomplished musician and artist. ![]() His latest project was “Archy,” a computer interface designed to operate similarly on Windows, Apple or other operating systems. It sold only 20,000 copies before Canon ended its support. He’s always analyzing if things are serving the functions they’re supposed to.”Īfter leaving Apple, Raskin formed his own company, Information Appliance, and developed a computer called the Canon Cat, with backing from Canon Inc. “In some of our interviews he’s analyzing the switches on an electric blanket or the Roomba mobile vacuum cleaner. “He couldn’t sit in a chair without analyzing everything around him and how it works,” Bourne recalled. Raskin and Jobs - who recently received treatment himself for a less-virulent form of the same cancer - reconciled and communicated frequently in recent months, said Jennie Bourne, a filmmaker who is making a documentary about Raskin and interviewed him extensively. Raskin named the project for his favorite kind of apple, and the name Macintosh lives on in the Power Mac, iMac and Mac mini computer sold by Apple today.īut Raskin felt Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was muscling in on the Macintosh project and resigned from the company in 1982, two years before the Macintosh was released. ![]()
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