Bill Atkinson
Bill Atkinson was an American computer engineer and programmer who worked at Apple Computer from 1978 to 1990 as employee No. 51. He was the principal designer and developer of the graphical user interface for the Apple Lisa and a key member of the original Macintosh development team. He is best known for creating QuickDraw, the fundamental graphics library that powered the Lisa and Macintosh interfaces, as well as MacPaint, HyperCard, and interface innovations including the menu bar, the selection lasso, and marching ants. He passed away on June 5, 2025, at the age of 74.
“Photoshop happened because of the design of Quickdraw's API. It was impossible for there to be a Windows version of Photoshop because it didn't have the same API shape and DirectX... The Macintosh Quickdraw had this routine built upon this idea of regions.”
Source→“Bill Atkinson, the engineer who recently passed away, worked on the Macintosh, specifically Quickdraw, which was Apple's graphics library. Photoshop happened because of the design of Quickdraw's API.”
Source→AI-extracted from podcast / newsletter / paper summaries. May contain errors.