Bill Atkinson, Macintosh Pioneer and Inventor of Hypercard, Dies at 74

My first meeting pinch Bill Atkinson was unforgettable. It was November 1983, and reporting for Rolling Stone, I had gained entree to nan squad building nan Macintosh computer, scheduled to motorboat early nan adjacent year. Everyone kept telling me, “Wait till you meet Bill and Andy,” referring to Atkinson and Andy Hertzfeld, 2 cardinal writers of nan Mac’s software. Here’s what I wrote astir nan brushwood successful my book, Insanely Great:

I met Bill Atkinson first. A gangly chap pinch unruly hair, a Pancho Villa moustache, and blazing bluish eyes, he had nan unnerving strength of Bruce Dern successful 1 of his turns arsenic an unhinged Vietnam vet. Like everyone other successful nan room, he wore jeans and a T-shirt. “Do you want to spot a bug?” he asked me. He pulled maine into his cubicle and pointed to his Macintosh. Filling nan surface was an incredibly elaborate drafting of an insect. It was beautiful, thing you mightiness spot connected an costly workstation successful a investigation lab, but not connected a individual computer. Atkinson laughed astatine his joke, past sewage very serious, talking successful an aggravated near-whisper that gave his words a reverential weight. “The obstruction betwixt words and pictures is broken,” he said. “Until now nan world of creation has been a ineffable club. Like good china. Now it’s for regular use.”

Atkinson was right. His contributions to nan Macintosh were captious to that breakthrough he’d whispered to maine astatine nan Apple agency known arsenic Bandley 3 that day. A fewer years later, he would singlehandedly make different elephantine publication pinch a programme called Hypercard, which presaged nan World Wide Web. Through it all, he retained his power and joie de vivre, and became an inspiration for each who would alteration nan world done code. On June 5, 2025, he died aft a agelong illness. He was 74.

Atkinson hadn’t planned connected becoming a pioneer successful individual computing. As a postgraduate student, he studied machine subject and neurobiology astatine nan University of Washington. But erstwhile he encountered an Apple II successful 1977, he fell successful love, and went to activity for nan institution that built it a twelvemonth later. He was worker number 51. In 1979, he was among nan mini group that Steve Jobs led to nan Xerox PARC investigation laboratory and was blown distant by nan schematic machine interface he saw there. It became his occupation to construe that futuristic exertion to nan consumer, moving connected Apple’s Lisa project. In nan process, he invented galore of nan conventions that still persist connected today’s computers, for illustration paper bars. Atkinson besides created QuickDraw, a groundbreaking exertion to efficiently tie objects connected a screen. One of those objects was nan “Round-Rect”—a container pinch rounded corners that would go portion of everyone’s computing experience. Atkinson had resisted nan idea until Jobs made him locomotion astir nan artifact and spot each nan postulation signs and different objects pinch rounded corners.

When Jobs took complete nan different Apple task inspired by PARC technology, nan Macintosh, he poached Atkinson, whose activity had already influenced that product. Hertzfeld, who was successful complaint of nan Mac interface, erstwhile explained to maine nan Lisa features he’d appropriated for nan Mac: “Anything Bill Atkinson did, I took, and thing else.” he said. Atkinson, who had go disenchanted astatine nan Lisa’s precocious value tag, embraced nan thought of a much affordable version, and began penning MacPaint, nan programme that would empower users to create creation connected nan Mac’s bit-mapped screen.

After nan Mac launched, nan squad began to unravel. Atkinson had nan title of Apple Fellow, which gave him nan state to prosecute passion projects. He began activity connected thing he called Magic Slate—a instrumentality pinch a high-resolution surface that weighed nether a lb and could beryllium controlled by a stylus and swipes connected a touch screen. Basically, he was designing nan iPad 25 years early. But nan exertion wasn’t fresh to create thing truthful miniaturized and powerful astatine an affordable value (Atkinson hoped it would beryllium truthful inexpensive you could spend to suffer six successful a twelvemonth and not beryllium bothered.) “I wanted Magic Slate truthful bad I could sensation it,” he erstwhile told me.