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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 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 ...
project at
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in the late 1970s.


Early life and education

Jef Raskin was born in New York City to a secular Jewish family, whose surname is a
matronymic A matronymic is a personal name based on the given name of one's mother, grandmother, or any female ancestor. It is the female equivalent of a patronymic. Around the world, matronymic surnames are far less common than patronymic surnames. In som ...
from "Raske",
Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...
nickname for Rachel. He received a BA in mathematics and a BS in
physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...
with minors in philosophy and
music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...
from Stony Brook University. In 1967, he received a
master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.
in
computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includi ...
from Pennsylvania State University, after having switched from
mathematical logic Mathematical logic is the study of formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory. Research in mathematical logic commonly addresses the mathematical properties of formal ...
due to differences of opinion with his advisor. Even though he had completed work for his PhD, the university was not accredited for a PhD in computer science. The first original computer application he wrote was a music application as part of his master's thesis. Raskin later enrolled in a graduate music program at 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 ...
(UCSD), but stopped to teach art, photography, and computer science there. He worked as an assistant professor in the Visual Arts department from 1968 until 1974. There, he did shows about toys as works of art. Raskin announced his resignation from the assistant professorship by flying over the Chancellor's house in a hot air balloon. He was awarded a
National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...
grant to establish a Computer and Humanities center which used several
16-bit 16-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 16-bit microprocessors. A 16-bit register can store 216 different values. The range of integer values that can be stored in 16 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two mo ...
Data General Nova The Data General Nova is a series of 16-bit minicomputers released by the American company Data General. The Nova family was very popular in the 1970s and ultimately sold tens of thousands of units. The first model, known simply as "Nova", was ...
computers and
glass terminal Glass is a non-crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenching) of ...
s rather than the teletypes which were more common at that time. Along with his undergraduate student Jonathan (Jon) Collins, Raskin developed the FLOW programming language for use in teaching programming to the art and humanities students. The language was first used at the Humanities Summer Training Institute held in 1970 at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. The language has only seven statements (, GET IT, PRINT IT, PRINT "text", JUMP TO, IF IT IS " " JUMP TO, and STOP) and can not manipulate numbers. The language was first implemented in Fortran by Collins in under a week. Later versions of the language utilized "typing amplification" in which only the first letter is typed and the computer provides the balance of the instruction eliminating typing errors. It was also the basis for programming classes taught by Raskin and Collins in the UCSD Visual Arts Department. Raskin curated several art shows including one featuring his collection of unusual toys, and presenting toys as works of art. During this period, he changed the spelling of his name from "Jeff" to "Jef" after having met Jon Collins and liking the lack of extraneous letters. Raskin occasionally wrote for computer publications, such as '' Dr. Dobb's Journal''. He formed a company named Bannister and Crun, which was named for two characters playing in the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
radio comedy ''
The Goon Show ''The Goon Show'' is a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the BBC Light Programme. The first series, broadcast from 28 May to 20 September 19 ...
''.


Career history


Apple


Contractor writer

Raskin first met Apple Computer co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in their garage workshop following the debut of their Apple II personal computer at the first
West Coast Computer Faire The West Coast Computer Faire was an annual computer industry conference and exposition most often associated with San Francisco, its first and most frequent venue. The first fair was held in 1977 and was organized by Jim Warren and Bob Reil ...
. Jobs hired Raskin's company Bannister and Crun to write the Apple II BASIC Programming Manual. Raskin said "I was talking fifty dollars a page. They talked fifty dollars for the whole manual." Upon the Apple II unit with the serial number of "2", he reportedly wrote "a literate manual that became a standard for the young industry".


Management

In January 1978, Raskin joined Apple as Manager of Publications, the company's 31st employee. For some time he continued as Director of Publications and New Product Review, and also worked on packaging and other issues. He had concealed his degree in computer science, out of concern for cultural bias against academia among the hobby-driven personal computer industry. He explained, "If they had known ... they might not have let me in the company, because there was such an antiacademic bias in the early Apple days." From his responsibility for documentation and testing, Raskin had great influence on early engineering projects. Because the Apple II only displayed uppercase characters on a 40-column screen, his department used the Polymorphic Systems 8813 (an Intel-8080-based machine running a proprietary operating system called Exec) to write documentation; this spurred the development of an 80-column display card and a suitable
text editor A text editor is a type of computer program that edits plain text. Such programs are sometimes known as "notepad" software (e.g. Windows Notepad). Text editors are provided with operating systems and software development packages, and can be ...
for the Apple II. His experiences testing
Applesoft BASIC Applesoft BASIC is a dialect of Microsoft BASIC, developed by Marc McDonald and Ric Weiland, supplied with the Apple II series of computers. It supersedes Integer BASIC and is the BASIC in ROM in all Apple II series computers after the origina ...
inspired him to design a competing product, called Notzo BASIC, which was never implemented. When Wozniak developed the first
disk drive Disk storage (also sometimes called drive storage) is a general category of storage mechanisms where data is recorded by various electronic, magnetic, optical, or mechanical changes to a surface layer of one or more rotating disks. A disk drive is ...
s for the Apple II, Raskin went back to his contacts at UCSD and encouraged them to port the UCSD P-System
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...
(incorporating a version of the
Pascal programming language Pascal is an imperative and procedural programming language, designed by Niklaus Wirth as a small, efficient language intended to encourage good programming practices using structured programming and data structuring. It is named in honour o ...
) to it, which Apple later licensed and shipped as
Apple Pascal Apple Pascal is an implementation of Pascal for the Apple II and Apple III computer series. It is based on UCSD Pascal. Just like other UCSD Pascal implementations, it ran on its own operating system (''Apple Pascal Operating System'', a derivati ...
. Through this time, Raskin continually wrote memos about how the personal computer could become a true consumer appliance. While the
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 ...
was under development in 1978 and '79, Raskin was lobbying for Apple to create a radically different kind of computer that was designed from the start to be easy to use. In ''Computers by the Millions'', he stated that expandable computers like the Apple II were too complex, and development was difficult due to the unknown nature of the machine the program ran on.Jef Raskin
Jef Raskin, "Computers by the Millions", 1979
/ref> The machine he envisioned was very different from the Macintosh that was eventually released and had much more in common with PDAs than modern
desktop A desktop traditionally refers to: * The surface of a desk (often to distinguish office appliances that fit on a desk, such as photocopiers and printers, from larger equipment covering its own area on the floor) Desktop may refer to various compu ...
-based machines.


Macintosh

Raskin started the
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 ...
project in 1979 to implement some of these ideas. He later hired his former student
Bill Atkinson Bill Atkinson (born March 17, 1951) is an American computer engineer and photographer. Atkinson worked at Apple Computer from 1978 to 1990. Atkinson was the principal designer and developer of the graphical user interface (GUI) of the Apple ...
from UCSD to work at Apple, along with
Andy Hertzfeld Andrew Jay Hertzfeld (born April 6, 1953) is an American software engineer and innovator who was a member of the original Apple Macintosh development team during the 1980s. After buying an Apple II in January 1978, he went to work for App ...
and
Burrell Smith Burrell Carver Smith (born December 16, 1955) is an American engineer who, while working at Apple Computer, designed the motherboard (digital circuit board) for the original Macintosh. He was Apple employee #282, and was hired in February 1979, i ...
from the Apple Service Department, which was located in the same building as the Publications Department. Secretly bypassing Jobs's ego and authority by continually securing permission and funding directly at the executive level, Raskin created and solely supervised the Macintosh project for approximately its first year. This included selecting the name of his favorite apple, writing the mission document ''The Book of Macintosh'', securing office space, and recruiting and managing the original staff. Author Steven Levy said, "It was Raskin who provided the powerful vision of a computer whose legacy would be low cost, high utility, and a groundbreaking friendliness." The machine was similar in power to the Apple II and included a small black-and-white character
display Display may refer to: Technology * Display device, output device for presenting information, including: ** Cathode ray tube, video display that provides a quality picture, but can be very heavy and deep ** Electronic visual display, output devi ...
built into a small case with a floppy disk. It was text only, as Raskin disliked the computer mouse or anything else that could take his hands from the keyboard. A number of basic applications were built into the machine, selectable by pressing function keys. The machine also included logic that would understand user intentions and switch programs dynamically. For instance, if the user simply started typing text it would switch into editor mode, and if they typed numbers it would switch to calculator mode. In many cases these switches would be largely invisible to the user. In 1981, after the
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. ...
team had "kicked him out", Steve Jobs's attention drew toward Raskin's Macintosh project, intending to marry the
Xerox PARC PARC (Palo Alto Research Center; formerly Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. Founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, the company was originally a division of Xero ...
-inspired
GUI 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, inste ...
-based Lisa design to Raskin's appliance-computing, "computers-by-the-millions" concept. Steve Wozniak was on hiatus from the company following a traumatic airplane accident, allowing Jobs to take managerial lead over the project. Raskin takes credit for being one of the first to introduce Jobs and the Lisa engineers to the PARC concepts, though he ultimately dismissed PARC's technology and opposed the use of computer mouse. Raskin also claims to have had continued direct input into the eventual Mac design, including the decision to use a one-button mouse as part of the Apple interface, a departure from the
Xerox PARC PARC (Palo Alto Research Center; formerly Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. Founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, the company was originally a division of Xero ...
's 3-button mouse. Others, including
Larry Tesler Lawrence Gordon Tesler (April 24, 1945 – February 16, 2020) was an American computer scientist who worked in the field of human–computer interaction. Tesler worked at Xerox PARC, Apple, Amazon, and Yahoo! While at PARC, Tesler's work include ...
, acknowledge his advocacy for a one-button mouse but say that it was a decision reached simultaneously by others at Apple who had a stronger say on the issue. Raskin later stated that were he to redesign the mouse it would have three clearly labeled buttons—two buttons on top marked "Select" and "Activate", and a "Grab" button on the side that could be used by squeezing the mouse. This description nearly fits the
Apple Mighty Mouse The Apple Mouse (formerly Apple Mighty Mouse) is a multi-control USB mouse manufactured by Mitsumi Electric and sold by Apple Inc. It was announced and sold for the first time on August 2, 2005, and a Bluetooth version was available from 200 ...
(renamed "Apple Mouse" in 2009), first marketed in 2005. It has the three described buttons (two invisible), but they are assigned to different functions than Raskin specified for his own interface and can be customized. In a 2005 interview, Macintosh project member
Andy Hertzfeld Andrew Jay Hertzfeld (born April 6, 1953) is an American software engineer and innovator who was a member of the original Apple Macintosh development team during the 1980s. After buying an Apple II in January 1978, he went to work for App ...
relates an anecdote about Raskin's reputation for often inaccurately claiming to have invented various technologies. Raskin's resume from 2002 lends credence by stating he was "Creator of Macintosh computer at Apple Computer, Inc." Raskin did create and solely supervise the Macintosh project for approximately its first year; however, Hertzfeld describes Raskin's relationship to the drastically different finished Mac product more like that of an "eccentric great uncle" than its father. In Jobs's "Lost Interview" from 1996, he refers to the Macintosh as a product of team effort while acknowledging Raskin's early role. Jobs reportedly co-opted some of Raskin's leadership philosophies, such as when he wrote the slogan on the Macintosh group's easel, "It's better to be a pirate than to join the Navy." Apple acknowledged Raskin's role after he had left the company by giving him as a gift, the millionth Macintosh computer, with an engraved brass plaque on the front.


Pioneering the information appliance

Raskin left Apple in 1982 and formed Information Appliance, Inc. to implement the concepts of his original Macintosh concept. The first product was the SwyftCard, a firmware card for the Apple II containing an integrated application suite, also released on a disk as SwyftWare. Information Appliance later developed the Swyft as a stand-alone laptop computer. Raskin licensed this design to
Canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western ca ...
, which shipped a similar desktop product as the
Canon Cat Canon Cat is a task-dedicated desktop computer released by Canon Inc. in 1987 at the price of U.S. $1,495. On the surface, it was not unlike dedicated word processors popular in the late 1970s to early 1980s, but it was far more powerful, and in ...
. Released in 1987, the unit had an innovative interface that attracted much interest but it did not become a commercial success. Raskin claimed that its failure was due in some part to Steve Jobs, who successfully pitched Canon on the
NeXT Computer NeXT Computer (also called the NeXT Computer System) is a workstation computer that was developed, marketed, and sold by NeXT Inc. It was introduced in October 1988 as the company's first and flagship product, at a price of , aimed at the hig ...
at about the same time. It has also been suggested that Canon canceled the Cat due to internal rivalries within its divisions. After running a cryptic full page advertisement in the "Wall Street Journal" that the "Canon Cat is coming" months before it was available, Canon failed to follow through, never airing the completed TV commercial when the Cat went on sale, only allowed the Cat to be sold by its typewriter sales people, and prevented Raskin from selling the Cat directly with a TV demonstration of how easy it was to use. Shortly thereafter, the stock market crash of 1987 so panicked Information Appliance's venture capitalists that they drained millions of dollars from the company, depriving it of the capital needed to be able to manufacture and sell the Swyft. Raskin also wrote a book, ''
The Humane Interface ''The Humane Interface: New Directions for Designing Interactive Systems'' () is a book about user interface design written by Jef Raskin and published in 2000. It covers ergonomics, quantification, evaluation, and navigation. Contents The book ...
'' (2000), in which he developed his ideas about human-computer interfaces. Raskin was a long-time member of BAYCHI, the Bay-Area Computer-Human Interface group, a professional organization for human-interface designers. He presented papers on his own work, reviewed the human interfaces of various consumer products (such as a BMW car he'd been asked to review), and discussed the work of his colleagues in various companies and universities. At the start of the new millennium, Raskin undertook the building of a new computer interface based on his 30 years of work and research, called The Humane Environment, THE. On January 1, 2005, he renamed it Archy. It is a system incarnating his concepts of the humane interface, by using
open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
elements within his rendition of a ZUI or
Zooming User Interface In computing, a zooming user interface or zoomable user interface (ZUI, pronounced zoo-ee) is a graphical environment where users can change the scale of the viewed area in order to see more detail or less, and browse through different document ...
. In the same period Raskin accepted an appointment as Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
's Computer Science Department and, with Leo Irakliotis, started designing a new curriculum on humane interfaces and computer enterprises. His work is being extended and carried on by his son
Aza Raskin Aza Raskin (born February 1, 1984) is the co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology and of the Earth Species Project. He is also a writer, entrepreneur, inventor, and interface designer. He is the son of Jef Raskin, a human–computer inte ...
at
Humanized Humanized antibodies are antibodies from non-human species whose protein sequences have been modified to increase their similarity to antibody variants produced naturally in humans. The process of "humanization" is usually applied to monoclonal an ...
, a company that was started shortly after Raskin's death to continue his legacy. Humanized released Enso, a linguistic command-line interface, which is based on Jef's work and dedicated in his memory. In early 2008, Humanized became part of
Mozilla Mozilla (stylized as moz://a) is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, spreads and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, wi ...
. While the Archy project never managed to include a functional ZUI, a third party developed a commercial application called Raskin inspired by the same
Zoomworld Archy may refer to: *Archy (software), a software system * Archy (character), fictional cockroach of Archy and Mehitabel *Sir Archy (1805–1833), American Thoroughbred racehorse See also * Archie (disambiguation) * Archy Kirkwood, a British poli ...
ZUI idea.


Cognetics

Raskin expanded the meaning of the term "cognetics" in his book ''The Humane Interface'' to mean "the
ergonomics Human factors and ergonomics (commonly referred to as human factors) is the application of psychological and physiological principles to the engineering and design of products, processes, and systems. Four primary goals of human factors learnin ...
of the mind". According to Raskin Center, "Cognetics brings interface design out of the mystic realm of guruism, transforming it into an engineering discipline with a rigorous theoretical framework." The term cognetics had earlier been coined and trademarked by Charles Kreitzberg in 1982 when he started Cognetics Corporation, one of the first user experience design companies. It is also used to describe educational programs intended to foster thinking skills in grades 3-12 (US) and for Cognetics, Inc., an economic research firm founded by David L. Birch, a Professor at
MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
. Raskin discouraged using the informal term "
intuitive Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without recourse to conscious reasoning. Different fields use the word "intuition" in very different ways, including but not limited to: direct access to unconscious knowledge; unconscious cognition; ...
" in user interface design, claiming that easy to use interfaces are often due to exposure to previous, similar systems, thus the term "familiar" should be preferred. Aiming for "intuitive" interfaces (based on reusing existing skills with interaction systems) could lead designers to discard a better design solution only because it would require a novel approach.


Outside interests

Best known as a computer scientist, Raskin had other interests. He conducted the San Francisco Chamber Opera Society and played various instruments, including the organ and the
recorder Recorder or The Recorder may refer to: Newspapers * ''Indianapolis Recorder'', a weekly newspaper * ''The Recorder'' (Massachusetts newspaper), a daily newspaper published in Greenfield, Massachusetts, US * ''The Recorder'' (Port Pirie), a news ...
. His artwork was displayed at New York's
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
as part of its permanent collection, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the University of California, San Diego. He received a patent for airplane wing construction, and designed and marketed radio controlled model gliders. He was said to be an accomplished
archer Archery is the sport, practice, or skill of using a bow to shoot arrows.Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 17 The word comes from the Latin ''arcus'', meaning bow. Historically, archery has been used for hunting and combat. In mo ...
, target shooter, bicycle racer and an occasional model race car driver. He was a passionate musician and composer, publishing a series of collected recorder studies using the pseudonym of Aabel Aabius. In his later years he also wrote
freelance ''Freelance'' (sometimes spelled ''free-lance'' or ''free lance''), ''freelancer'', or ''freelance worker'', are terms commonly used for a person who is self-employed and not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. Freelance w ...
articles for Macintosh magazines, such as '' Mac Home Journal'', as well as many modeling magazines, ''
Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...
'', ''
Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fra ...
'', and computing journals. One of his most favorite pastimes was to play music with his children. He would accompany them on the piano while they played or sang while going through old fake-books passed down from his father. They would also routinely improvise together. Raskin owned Jef's Friends, a small company which made model airplane kits, which were sold through hobby shops. He was a toy designer. He designed Space Expander, a hanging cloth maze for a person to walk through. He designed Bloxes, a set of interlocking wood blocks. One of Raskin's instruments was the organ. In 1978 he published an article 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 unit ...
'' on using computers with the instrument. Raskin published a paper highly critical of pseudoscience in nursing, such as
therapeutic touch Therapeutic touch (commonly shortened to "TT"), known by some as "non-contact therapeutic touch" (NCTT), is a pseudoscientific energy therapy which practitioners claim promotes healing and reduces pain and anxiety. "Therapeutic Touch" is a regi ...
and Rogerian science, wherein he said: "Unlike science, nursing theory has no built-in mechanisms for rejecting falsehoods, tautologies, and irrelevancies."


Personal life

Jef Raskin married Linda S. Blum in 1982. They had three children together—
Aza Aza or AZA may refer to: Places *Aza, Azerbaijan, a village and municipality *Azadkənd, Nakhchivan or Lower Aza, Azerbaijan *Aza, medieval name of Haza, Province of Burgos, Spain *Aźa, a Tibetan name for the Tuyuhun kingdom *Aza, a Hebrew roman ...
, Aviva, and Aenea, with honorary surrogate siblings R. Fureigh and Jenna Mandis. In 1985, Raskin described his house as "practically one large playground", with secret doors and passageways, an auditorium that seats 185, and a model airplane room. He said, "I decided when I grew up I was not going to give up the things I liked doing, and I've not." He was diagnosed with
pancreatic cancer Pancreatic cancer arises when cell (biology), cells in the pancreas, a glandular organ behind the stomach, begin to multiply out of control and form a Neoplasm, mass. These cancerous cells have the malignant, ability to invade other parts of t ...
in December 2004 and died in
Pacifica, California Pacifica ( es, Pacífica, meaning "Peaceful") is a city in San Mateo County, California, on the coast of the Pacific Ocean between San Francisco and Half Moon Bay. Overview The City of Pacifica is spread along a stretch of coastal beaches and hi ...
, on February 26, 2005, at age 61.


See also

*
Information appliance An information appliance (IA) is an appliance that is designed to easily perform a specific electronic function such as playing music, photography, or editing text. Typical examples are smartphones and personal digital assistants (PDAs). Inf ...


References


External links

* * *
Publications by Jef Raskin
from Interaction-Design.org

*, February 27, 2005. {{DEFAULTSORT:Raskin, Jef 1943 births 2005 deaths American computer scientists 20th-century American Jews Apple Inc. employees Canon (company) people Deaths from cancer in California Deaths from pancreatic cancer Human–computer interaction researchers Human–computer interaction Pennsylvania State University alumni People from Pacifica, California Stony Brook University alumni Writers from California 21st-century American Jews