Bill Atkinson Diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer
Although I generally refuse to interact with Facebook, I’ll follow a link there when it seems important. I was thus saddened to read this post from Bill Atkinson, one of the key figures in the initial development of the Macintosh and the inventor of HyperCard. I quote it in its entirety for those who boycott Facebook.
Request for Prayers
November 12, 2024I am asking friends and well-wishers to pray for me.
I believe that group intention can actually make a difference.On October first, I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Because of vascular involvement, surgery is not possible. I am taking weekly chemo treatments to shrink the tumor before surgical resection. I am tolerating the chemo pretty well, and I am in good spirits. Every day I make a point of getting out in the sun and walking with Cai and Poppy.
I am receiving excellent care for my physical body from a team of doctors and nurses at Stanford and UCSF. I am also receiving several different modalities of holistic treatments for my emotional and spiritual health. The treatments are helping, and I am feeling much less pain now. I am even regaining a little of the weight that I lost.
From my Iboga experience seven years ago, I know for certain that my consciousness and memories will continue after I leave my physical body. I have no existential fear of death. Actually more anticipation and curiosity.
At 73 years, I have already lived an amazing and wonderful life. I have loved and been loved, beginning with my remarkable mother who believed in me. With my work at Apple and General Magic I am grateful that I could make positive contributions to the lives of many millions of people, and even affect the course of human evolution.
But I want more quality time to share life and experiences with Cai and with my friends and family. My bucket list is not filled with places to travel, but instead with quality time with those I love and those who love me.
I am living my life filled with gratitude. Each day is a special gift to be unwrapped, enjoyed, and cherished.
Thank you for praying for me.
Bill Atkinson
Many years ago, I had the pleasure of a lengthy conversation with Bill. In “Macworld Expo 2010 Reboots” (15 February 2010), I wrote:
The highlight of my week came the day before the show actually opened, when I paused to look at some gorgeous photographs spread out on a table in the speaker lounge. Before I knew it, Bill Atkinson (creator of QuickDraw, MacPaint, and HyperCard, and an accomplished nature photographer) appeared out of nowhere to explain how the photographs came from his new iPhone app, PhotoCard, which enables users to send an email (for free) or paper (for a small printing and mailing fee) photo postcard, using either a personal photo or one of 150 of Bill’s nature photos. And when I say “explain,” I mean it in spades. Without prompting, Bill explained in detail how he’d built the back end, tweaked the Indigo printing process for the ultimate quality, and created a system that could serve as a marketplace for other fine art photographers.
Needless to say, Bill had seen the iPad at its introduction, and he felt it was an extremely positive move for the future of computing, showing that much of the complexity of maintaining and using a computer can be eliminated by rethinking user interfaces. He said, interestingly, that Apple had been working on the iPad well before the iPhone’s release, but that the necessary technology just wasn’t available, so Steve Jobs decided that Apple would instead focus on the iPhone as the first member of a family of iPhone OS devices. And, reportedly, Steve told Bill that the hardest engineering task in iPad development was getting the price down to the $499 level; technology development may be hard, but doing it within tight price constraints requires more than technical wizardry.
After Bill finished his whirlwind technical discussion of everything related to PhotoCard and the iPad, we went on to talk about his goals with HyperCard, how I’d started TidBITS in HyperCard format back in 1990, and why he left Apple for General Magic in part to create a device that would facilitate the passing of short notes called “telecards.” It was fascinating to think about how his work was too early – the cellular infrastructure wasn’t in place – but how it presaged SMS text messaging and Twitter, and may have even informed some of Apple’s iPad design.
Somehow that segued into a conversation about features that he had pulled out of MacPaint and his efforts to create a “learning processor,” and from there into educational philosophies about how we learn. Nearly two hours after we started, I had to pull myself away to meet Tonya at a media reception, but the time spent talking with Bill was an utterly unexpected bonus. Obviously, that’s not something that can be replicated for everyone, but that sort of serendipitous meeting happens all the time at Macworld Expo.
Our lives as Apple users have been immeasurably enriched by Bill’s work. Without him, the Macintosh might not have caught on, and HyperCard certainly wouldn’t have existed. And without HyperCard, I wouldn’t have started TidBITS—the opportunity to do electronic publishing in HyperCard was integral to my decision to help with Tonya’s idea of writing a weekly tech newsletter to keep her colleagues up to date.
I’ll be thinking of Bill, and I invite you to join me.
I fell madly in love with HyperCard when it was first released. It as truly amazing; I continued to love it until its demise.
There isn’t much more to say than my thoughts are with him. Anyone with cancer, especially pancreatic, has a tough road ahead of them.
Best thoughts and wishes to Bill.
And we all owe him a debt of gratitude, thanks for the update and relating your encounter with him. Pancreatic cancer is particularly cruel, I lost a cousin to it a few years ago, when the doctor broke the news to him, he asked him what he wanted to do. My cousin said “This, this is what I want to do.” Life, so precious, so fragile.
Pancreatic cancer has been particularly hard on our Mac world, with Steve Jobs and Jef Raskin both succumbing, as did my friend Oliver Habicht. I hope luck and lots of good vibes carry Bill through for many more years.
Thank you for posting this.
Bill is an amazing guy. I remember when he visited the Los Angeles Macintosh Group at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power many years ago and how wonderful and generous he was to everyone at the meeting. Every interaction I have had with him has been just perfect. I emailed him several times about PhotoCard and he was generous, helpful, and enthusiastic about the software, attributes I’m sure he brought to all aspects of his life.
I sure am going to pray for him - hard and a lot!
Very sad to hear. I had the pleasure of meeting Bill after he introduced PhotoCard at Macworld. His level of genius was well above many geniuses, along with being very kind and enthusastic.
I thought pancreatic cancer was rare, but it certainly seems to be occuring more than it should. Not quite the same thing, but I hope everyone here is up-to-date with a colonoscopy. I’ve lost a few friends to the type of cancer that could have been caught in time, if only they had the test.
My thoughts, payers and best wishes to Bill.
So sad to hear, as it would be for anyone with the same issue. I will that Bill gets through it in the best possible way.
I learned so much by using Hypercard. Its structure taught me much that lent itself to subsequent work with relational databases.
However, even at that early stage of hardware and software, Hypercard allowed me to build an inventory and loan system to keep track of all the software and hardware of a tertiary college as well as several other immensely useful programs for libraries and education.
I still have a couple of folders of the scripts for some of these applications (there were no ‘apps’ then) and copies of them on floppy disk which still operate in a working Mac SE I have.
Those early days with Apple were pure magic and not least because of the Apple ethos of the time and the likes of Bill Atkinson who, at least to me, seemed more motivated by the excitement and wonder of what could be accomplished and by making it happen for people, without the complexity, rather than a preoccupation with fame or fortune.
I’ll be forever grateful for his contribution, which even at almost 80, I still believe I benefit from, despite the great changes to the whole scene.
Thanks Bill.
You are in my thoughts now Bill, I send my best wishes for defeating this menace.
PS I loved Hypercard, it sparked my Mac interest.
Get Well, Get Happy
Bill and I went to college together (UCSD) where Jef Raskin also taught. It was a heady time. We reconnected years later at the Center for Photographic Art.
I’m sorry Bill. My heart is with you.
My prayers for Bill!
The Mac has been a major force in my life and my business, and I first became entranced by HyperCard, that strange and unexpected way for all of us to discover the Mac.
Positive thoughts from many, many people whose lives you touched, and changed!
Best wishes for an easy path as you move onward in life!
My deepest wishes for Bill Atkinson…
Unlike most who knew oe were influenced by Bill Atkinson’s acheivements AFTER his initial Macintosh contributions… I bought my first Macintosh in 1985, I purchased every book and article before I even bought it! I was most fascinated with the Human centered interface and MacDraw His fingerprints were in every corner of the Mac, and the philosophical underpinnings. Although an art educator, I was extradinarily impressed by his Biological science background. His vision allowed the mac to become the ‘primary machine’ of Digital Graphic Design, eventually becoming Photoshop’s platform establishing unthought-of image quality and manipulation. I road his developments as an electronic, publishing specialist,taught community college Professional graphic design programs, Web design and Digital photography programs for the 25 years after my first little Macintosh. None of which would have been possible without his blend of coding, interface design and psychology. It never surprised me that his latest creation of amazing color printing! Thanks for my career and inspiration to me. His blessings have impacte my entire life.
Deeply saddened to hear of Bill’s cancer. I had the honor for a time of being the product marketing mgr of HyperCard at Apple and seeing so many people and companies inspired by the potential that Bill’s innovation brought to them. HyperCard was one of, if not the best, programming environment that introduced people to the Mac and we’ll all be forever indented to Bill for creating it.
I had the pleasure and honor to meet Bill Atkinson at Macworld expo 2010 in San Francisco. I thanked him for creating Hypercard and asked him, how he liked the iPhone. He had one with him and did indeed like it a lot. So I showed him my white iPhone3G running Hypercard within the minivMac Mac emulator. He was flabbergasted and just couldnt believe his eyes! When we seperated again, he told me: you made my day! Thanks.
Hypercard, we hardly knew ye… I’m not saying hypercard could have evolved to anything we’d still want today but it definitely died a premature death. Murdered!
I spent some time with Bill and the Mac team while I was forming the Stanford Mac Users’ Group. Bill is one of the kindest souls on the planet only matched by his intense curiosity and insane creativity,
Got my first Macintosh in '85 & when I first zonked out on hypercard, I thought it was the ‘internet’…even back in those daze I thought of you as a personal friend bill…you got my prayers for sure.
This saddens me beyond what I can express. Bill, along with Andy & Jef were all heroes of mine. Those were a big part of the really heady days of the fruit, it’s been downhill ever since then. Hypercard was perhaps the most brilliant software idea ever. I almost literally cried when they murdered it. Never met Bill but always considered him a kind of friend… be well Bill, you are in my thoughts.
Great to read these memories here. Bill was certainly the embodiment of the artistic origins of the Mac and the community around it. The initial visionaries who saw the potential for new creative forms to emerge.
HyperCard isn’t dead; it’s still going as Edinburgh-based LiveCode, though thanks to pandemic economics they had to sunset their wonderful free version three years ago.
This is heartbreaking. Bill is a true innovator, and HyperCard is probably the greatest piece of software ever created.
True innovation takes many, many paths. One of those was the work of a magnificent teacher and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Burton D. “Bud” Rose, who realized the unique ability of HyperText to organize mountains of changing medical information for ordinary medical practitioners. Thus was born “UpToDate in Nephrology” in Bud’s office, in probably the late 1980s (I don’t remember the actual date). Bud convinced some of his academic colleagues to help him leverage HyperCard into a repository of published advances in Kidney Disease care. Because of my addiction to the Mac, I was fortunate to become one of Bud’s early beta testers. Bud’s wife would mail manila envelopes containing sometimes dozens of 3.5" rigid floppies" to us 3 times per year, primarily just for proofreading. Once the internet and browsers transformed information distribution, UpToDate became THE go-to repository of medical information at one’s fingertips. Some VERY smart people have suggested that Bud’s idea was so transformational in the propagation and access to medical information in critical care that Bud should have received the Nobel Prize in Medicine (on the other hand, I have a dear friend whose career was in academic library sciences who “blames” UpToDate for the death of the community hospital medical library. My own view of that is that most innovations have their time in the sun and get replaced by others. Today, one would be hard pressed to find a decent hospital that does NOT provide instantaneous access to UpToDate on all its medical care workstations.
That is so spot-on.
To getter an even better grasp of how extensive Atkinson’s contributions were at Apple, you can find some great reads on the website of the Computer History museum.
The first one includes video from a panel discussion on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Mac:
Insanely Great
This background on the Lisa’s genesis story prominently features Atkinson, as well:
The Lisa: Apple’s Most Influential Failure
And if you want to see how the “sausauge was made” back then, the CHM has released the actual source code of MacPaint and QuickDraw, both of which Atkinson also developed:
MacPaint And QuickDraw Source Code
May he recover fully and be well again soon.
Hear, hear.
Wow. I hadn’t read any Pascal in many years. That brings back memories.
I guess in a way, I owe the second half of my career to Bill Atkinson. After bumping along as an independent Mac consultant for a number of years, I got married, started a family, and realised it was time for a “real job.” At the time I was the moderator of the HyperCard forum on CompuServe. One of the frequent members of that forum one day sent me a private email asking whether I’d have any interest in doing HyperCard work for the major electric utility in southern California. They hired me, that job led to another with a major bank headquartered nearby, and 20 years later I had raised a family and retired comfortably. But the initial break was HyperCard, and my familiarity with it. Thanks, Bill!
Hello Jeff, I remember that Compuserve forum - it was a great place to learn!
We all owe a debt to Bill’s genius. My own businesses were built on the Mac and the LaserWriter - they gave me an edge.
My thoughts are with Bill. I have his magnificent book of mineral photography ‘Within the Stone’. And he was kind enough to personally respond to a query I had about Photocard. I must have been one of the last people to send some! And thinking of Hypercard do we remember Brian Thomas’s If Monks had Macs? There is an emulation up at If Monks Had Macs : Brian Thomas : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive But it doesn’t load in Safari on Sequoia 15.1.1 Does anyone know of another in-browser emulation?
According to his Facebook page, today is his second wedding anniversary. He married Jingwen Cai on January 7, 2023.
Damn, this makes me really sad. Bil was one of my heroes from those early, heady days of Macintosh. He and Andy Hertzfeld and a host of others.
Oh man, I’ve had the OS X version on my Mac for the longest time, but, alas, never really took the time to explore it. It’s a PowerPC application, and I don’t have a machine with that processor “handy,” so…
I did, however, get the version behind the link you posted to work in the most recent version Firefox running on an M2 Mac. Very neat!
Thanks for reminding us of that wonderful stack, @steve17!
I also found it works on my MBPro M1 running Sequoia 15.2 in the Firefox browser. Though it is very kludgy.
Apropos history this is a fascinating interview with Brenda Laurel - her book Computers as Theatre was required reading on my MA in Interactive Multimedia Production in 1996. She worked on Atari games as a researcher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru-ev3zhhus
The same guy then interviews Bob Stein who worked with Brenda and HCI (Human Computer Interaction) pioneer Alan Kay at Atari. Bob Stein went on to co-found The Criterion Collection and later the Voyager Company. Voyager published the first CD-ROMs including If Monks had Macs. He mentions the first thing Steve Jobs did when he returned to Apple was kill Hypercard. He worked on an interactive version of the Encyclopaedia Britannica at Atari which was owned by Warners who didn’t know what to do with the platform. He is now working on an interactive interface for the Internet Archive. This was inspired by Muriel Cooper’s groundbreaking work on 3D interfaces for computer navigation while she was at MIT with Alan Kay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No7MyFafWqU