Jerrold Clifford Manock (born February 21, 1944) is an American
industrial design
Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical Product (business), products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in advan ...
er. He worked for
Apple Computer
Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...
from 1977 to 1984, contributing to housing designs for the
Apple II
The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...
,
Apple III
The Apple III (styled as apple ///) is a business-oriented personal computer produced by Apple Computer and released in 1980. Running the Apple SOS operating system, it was intended as the successor to the Apple II series, but was largely consi ...
, and earlier compact
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 ...
computers. Manock is widely regarded as the "father" of the
Apple Industrial Design Group
The Apple Industrial Design Group is the industrial design department within Apple Inc. responsible for crafting the physical appearance of all Apple products. The group was established so that Apple could design more products in-house, rather t ...
. Since 1976
he is the president and principal designer of Manock Comprehensive Design, Inc., with offices in
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto (; Spanish language, Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree kno ...
, and
Burlington, Vermont
Burlington is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Vermont and the seat of Chittenden County. It is located south of the Canada–United States border and south of Montreal. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the population was 44,743. It ...
.
Education and career
Manock attended
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
, where he earned his B.S. in
mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and ...
in 1966 and his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering–Product Design in 1968. For his master's project, he worked on a device to aid in percussion-drainage therapy for children with
cystic fibrosis
Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a rare genetic disorder that affects mostly the lungs, but also the pancreas, liver, kidneys, and intestine. Long-term issues include difficulty breathing and coughing up mucus as a result of frequent lung infections. O ...
.
From 1968 to 1972 Manock worked as a product design engineer in the Microwave Division of
Hewlett-Packard
The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...
,
Palo Alto
Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto.
The city was estab ...
, California. From 1972 to 1975 he was chief mechanical engineer at Telesensory Systems, Inc., of Palo Alto. He then worked as a freelance product design consultant; in 1977 he took on Apple Computer as a client and consulted on the product design and mechanical engineering of the Apple II
personal computer
A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...
.
Apple Design Team
Manock joined Apple in 1979 as corporate manager of product design. Working under the direction of
Steve Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; a ...
, Manock led the product designs of the Apple II, the Apple III, and the "
Cuisinart
Cuisinart ( ) is an American home appliance brand owned by Conair Corporation. The company was started in 1971 by Carl Sontheimer to bring an electric food processor to the U.S. market. The "Food Processor" was the first model, introduced at a f ...
-inspired" upright casing for the first Macintosh computer, which necessitated a detached
keyboard
Keyboard may refer to:
Text input
* Keyboard, part of a typewriter
* Computer keyboard
** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping
** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware
Music
* Musi ...
. Manock also worked on the
Disk II
The Disk II Floppy Disk Subsystem, often rendered as Disk ] '', is a -inch floppy disk drive designed by Apple Computer, Inc. It went on sale in June 1978 at a retail price of US$495 for pre-order; it was later sold for $595 () including the Di ...
,
Disk III
The Disk II Floppy Disk Subsystem, often rendered as Disk ] '', is a -inch floppy disk drive designed by Apple Computer, Inc. It went on sale in June 1978 at a retail price of US$495 for pre-order; it was later sold for $595 () including the Di ...
, and
Apple Lisa
Lisa is a desktop computer developed by Apple, released on January 19, 1983. It is one of the first personal computers to present a graphical user interface (GUI) in a machine aimed at individual business users. Its development began in 1978. ...
office computer.
Manock was a member 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 ...
design team. In January 1981, when Jobs became manager of the Macintosh project, he brought in Manock and Terry Oyama to design the computer housing. According to Jason O'Grady in ''Apple Inc.'', Manock was "hand-picked" by
Jef Raskin
Jef Raskin (born Jeff Raskin; March 9, 1943 – February 26, 2005) was an American human–computer interface expert best known for conceiving and starting the Macintosh project at Apple in the late 1970s.
Early life and education
Jef Raskin ...
to work on the Macintosh design team. In a 1984 interview, Manock said that the initial design goal was for a computer housing with "portability", but that idea was replaced by the design goal of "minimal desk space". As a result, the design team created a keyboard that was smaller than the width of the computer. Manock himself contributed the idea of using
icons
An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; "an icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion". The most ...
on the outside of the machine rather than
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
words to make the Macintosh more international. This style was mirrored in the
ROM
Rom, or ROM may refer to:
Biomechanics and medicine
* Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient
* Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac
* R ...
, which used icons instead of English-language directions, such as a frowning face when the computer needed to
reboot
In computing, rebooting is the process by which a running computer system is restarted, either intentionally or unintentionally. Reboots can be either a cold reboot (alternatively known as a hard reboot) in which the power to the system is physi ...
and a smiling face indicating
booting
In computing, booting is the process of starting a computer as initiated via hardware such as a button or by a software command. After it is switched on, a computer's central processing unit (CPU) has no software in its main memory, so som ...
.
Patents
Manock is the co-inventor of:
*Personal computer (U.S. Patent No. D268584), 12 April 1983
*Dual disk drive (U.S. Patent No. D271102), 25 October 1983
*Housing for moveable cursor control for a video display (U.S. Patent No. D284284), 17 June 1986
*Computer housing (U.S. Patent No. D285687), 16 September 1986
*Keypad (U.S. Patent No. D286047), 7 October 1986
*Disk drive housing (U.S. Patent No. D286050), 7 October 1986
*Disk drive case (U.S. Patent No. D290257), 9 June 1987
* Equatorial sundial apparatus utilizing one or more concave cylindrical focusing mirrors (U.S. Patent No. 6301793), 16 October 2001
Teaching
Manock is a part-time lecturer on product design at the
University of Vermont
The University of Vermont (UVM), officially the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Burlington, Vermont. It was founded in 1791 and is amon ...
.
Family
Manock married Mary Ellen Tobey; they have two daughters, Abigail and Katherine.
Bibliography
*
IPD team
References
External links
Website of Manock Comprehensive Design, Inc.Macintosh 128K Home Computer at the Museum of Modern Art
{{DEFAULTSORT:Manock, Jerry
1944 births
Living people
Industrial designers
Stanford University alumni
Place of birth missing (living people)
Apple Inc. employees