William "Bill" D. Atkinson (born March 17, 1951) is an American

computer engineer Computer engineering (CoE or CpE) is a branch of electrical engineering and computer science that integrates several fields of computer science and electronic engineering required to develop computer hardware and computer software, software. C ...

and photographer. Atkinson worked at Apple Computer from 1978 to 1990. Atkinson was the principal designer and developer of the

graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inst ...

(GUI) of the Apple Lisa and, later, one of the first thirty members of the original Apple

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...

development team, and was the creator of the

MacPaint MacPaint is a raster graphics editor developed by Apple Computer and released with the original Macintosh personal computer on January 24, 1984. It was sold separately for US$195 with its word processing counterpart, MacWrite. MacPaint was nota ...

application. He also designed and implemented

QuickDraw A quickdraw (also known as an extender) is a piece of climbing equipment used by rock and ice climbers to allow the climbing rope to run freely through protection such as a bolt anchors or other traditional gear while leading. A quickdr ...

, the fundamental toolbox that the Lisa and Macintosh used for graphics. QuickDraw's performance was essential for the success of the Macintosh GUI. He also was one of the main designers of the Lisa and Macintosh

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

s. Atkinson also conceived, designed and implemented

HyperCard HyperCard is a software application and development kit for Apple Macintosh and Apple IIGS computers. It is among the first successful hypermedia systems predating the World Wide Web. HyperCard combines a flat-file database with a graphical, f ...

, an early and influential hypermedia system. HyperCard put the power of computer programming and database design into the hands of non programmers. In 1994, Atkinson received the

EFF Pioneer Award The EFF Pioneer Award is an annual prize by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) for people who have made significant contributions to the empowerment of individuals in using computers. Until 1998 it was presented at a ceremony in Washington, ...

for his contributions.

Education

He received his undergraduate degree from the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...

, where Apple Macintosh developer Jef Raskin was one of his professors. Atkinson continued his studies as a graduate student in neurochemistry at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...

. Raskin invited Atkinson to visit him at Apple Computer; Steve Jobs persuaded him to join the company immediately as employee No. 51, and Atkinson never finished his PhD.

Career

Around 1990,

General Magic General Magic was an American software and electronics company co-founded by Bill Atkinson, Andy Hertzfeld, and Marc Porat. Based in Mountain View, California, the company developed precursors to " USB, software modems, small touchscreens, to ...

's founding, with Bill Atkinson as one of the three cofounders, met the following press in ''

Byte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable uni ...

'' magazine:

The obstacles to General Magic's success may appear daunting, but General Magic is not your typical start-up company. Its partners include some of the biggest players in the worlds of computing, communications, and consumer electronics, and it's loaded with top-notch engineers who have been given a clean slate to reinvent traditional approaches to ubiquitous worldwide communications.

In 2007, Atkinson began working as an outside developer with Numenta, a startup working on computer intelligence. On his work there Atkinson said, "what Numenta is doing is more fundamentally important to society than the personal computer and the rise of the Internet." Currently, Atkinson has combined his passion for computer programming with his love of

nature photography Nature photography is a wide range of photography taken outdoors and devoted to displaying natural elements such as landscapes, wildlife, plants, and close-ups of natural scenes and textures. Nature photography tends to put a stronger emphasis o ...

to create art images. He takes close-up photographs of stones that have been cut and polished. His works are highly regarded for their resemblance to miniature landscapes which are hidden within the stones. Atkinson's 2004 book ''Within the Stone'' features a collection of his close-up photographs. The highly intricate and detailed images he creates are made possible by the accuracy and creative control of the digital printing process that he helped create. Some of Atkinson's noteworthy contributions to the field of computing include: * Macintosh

and Lisa LisaGraf ** Atkinson independently discovered the

midpoint circle algorithm In computer graphics, the midpoint circle algorithm is an algorithm used to determine the points needed for rasterizing a circle. Bresenham's circle algorithm is derived from the midpoint circle algorithm. The algorithm can be generalized to con ...

for fast drawing of circles by using the sum of consecutive odd numbers. *

Marching ants The marching ants effect is an animation technique often found in selection tools of computer graphics programs. It helps the user to distinguish the selection border from the image background by animating the border. The border is a dotted or d ...

* The

double-click A double-click is the act of pressing a computer mouse button twice quickly without moving the mouse. Double-clicking allows two different actions to be associated with the same mouse button. It was developed by Bill Atkinson of Apple Computer ( ...

* Menu bar * The selection lasso * FatBits *

* Atkinson dithering * Bill Atkinson PhotoCardBill Atkinson PhotoCard
/ref> Atkinson now works as a nature photographer. Actor Nelson Franklin portrayed him in the 2013 film ''

Jobs Jobs may refer to: * Job, an activity that people do for regular income gain People * Steve Jobs (1955–2011), co-founder and former CEO of Apple Inc ** Steve Jobs (disambiguation) * Laurene Powell Jobs (born 1963), widow of Steve Jobs * Lisa ...

''.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Atkinson, Bill 1951 births American photographers Apple Inc. employees Apple Fellows Living people University of California, San Diego alumni Place of birth missing (living people) University of Washington alumni Macintosh operating systems people Scientists from the San Francisco Bay Area