Jef Raskin
Jef Raskin (born Jeff Raskin; March 9, 1943 – February 26, 2005) was an American human–computer interface expert who conceived and began leading the Macintosh project at Apple in the late 1970s.
Jef Raskin
March 9, 1943
February 26, 2005 (aged 61)
human–computer interface expert
Linda S. Blum (m. 1982)
3
Early life and education[edit]
Jef Raskin was born in New York City to a secular Jewish family,[1] whose surname is a matronymic from "Raske", Yiddish nickname for Rachel. He received a BA in mathematics and a BS in physics with minors in philosophy and music from Stony Brook University.[2] In 1967, he received a master's degree in computer science from Pennsylvania State University, after having switched from mathematical logic due to differences of opinion with his advisor. Even though he had completed work typical for a PhD, the university was not accredited for a PhD in computer science.[2] 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 (UCSD), but quit 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 presented shows about toys as works of art.[3] Raskin announced his resignation from the assistant professorship by flying over the Chancellor's house in a hot air balloon.[2] He was awarded a National Science Foundation grant to establish a Computer and Humanities center which used several 16-bit Data General Nova computers and CRTs rather than the teletypes which were more common.
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 (COMMENT, 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.[3] 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 radio comedy The Goon Show.[4]
Outside interests[edit]
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. His artwork was displayed at New York's Museum of Modern Art 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,[26] and designed and marketed radio controlled model gliders.
He was said to be an accomplished archer, 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 articles for Macintosh magazines, such as Mac Home Journal, and many modeling magazines, Forbes, Wired, and computing journals. One of his most favorite pastimes was to play music with his children. He accompanied them on the piano while they played or sang while going through old fake-books passed down from his father. They routinely improvised together.
Raskin owned Jef's Friends, a small company which made model airplane kits, which were sold through hobby shops.[27][3]
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.[3]
One of Raskin's instruments was the organ. In 1978 he published an article in BYTE on using computers with the instrument.[28]
Raskin published a paper highly critical of pseudoscience in nursing, such as therapeutic touch and Rogerian science, wherein he said: "Unlike science, nursing theory has no built-in mechanisms for rejecting falsehoods, tautologies, and irrelevancies."[29][30]
Personal life[edit]
Jef Raskin married Linda S. Blum in 1982. They had three children together—Aza, 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."[3]
He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in December 2004 and died in Pacifica, California, on February 26, 2005, at age 61.[31]