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RIP: Bill Atkinson, co-creator of Apple Lisa and Mac

The Register · Liam Proven · last updated

Bill Atkinson, widely acclaimed as perhaps the most brilliant computer programmer ever, has succumbed to pancreatic cancer at 74.

Atkinson’s family announced the news on Facebook on Sunday.

William Dana Atkinson was one of the core people on the teams that created the Lisa and then Macintosh computers at Apple in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He was one of the most important and influential computer programmers who has ever lived. It is no exaggeration to say that all computer UIs designed in the last 40 years were shaped and influenced by Atkinson’s brilliance and originality.

 

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