Jef Raskin

Jef Raskin (1943 to 2005), born Jeff Raskin, was an American human-computer interface expert who conceived and began leading the Macintosh project at Apple in the late 1970s. Born in New York City, he studied mathematics and physics at Stony Brook University and received a master's degree in computer science from Pennsylvania State University in 1967. At the University of California, San Diego he taught in the Visual Arts department from 1968 to 1974 and, with his student Jon Collins, developed FLOW, a seven-statement language for teaching programming to art and humanities students. His company Bannister and Crun wrote the Apple II BASIC Programming Manual, and he joined Apple in January 1978 as Manager of Publications, the company's 31st employee. He started the Macintosh project in 1979, wrote its mission document The Book of Macintosh and recruited its first staff, and supervised it for about a year before Steve Jobs took over its management. How much of the finished Macintosh was his own is disputed: colleagues acknowledge his early role, while Andy Hertzfeld likened his relationship to the final product to that of an eccentric great uncle.