Bill Atkinson, a software engineer involved in creating GUIs for the Apple Lisa and Apple Macintosh computers, died at the age of 74 due to pancreatic cancer last Thursday. His death was announced by his family members on Facebook today.
In addition to being involved in the development of early operating systems at Apple, he was also the creator of the menu bar, pull-down menus, and double-clicks using a mouse that are still used in modern operating systems and software. The HyperCard software that Atkinson also developed became a platform for developing software, interactive content, video games and slides before Powerpoint was created by Dennis Austin.
The deceased was Apple's 51st employee before expanding his wings to establish General Magic with Andy Hertzfeld and Marc Porat. At General Magic, the Magic Cap operating system was developed using it on the failed Sony Magic Link.
The Magic Cap interface
Failed enough that many do not remember its existence even though it was one of the earliest mobile devices to combine internet connectivity, a touch screen, messaging features, a fax machine and a telephone, to the point of being considered the proto-smartphone used today.
The failure of Magic Link led to the company going out of business, with two of its former employees, Tony Fadell and Andy Rubin, going on to create the iPod and Android. Thus, General Magic, despite its failure, is considered the Fairchild Semiconductor of the 90s.