I stand corrected on my original note. I guess the art of correctness, even in the highly-technical world of computing, should be adhered to. The anti-science, so rapid in today's world, demands we attribute originality, preserving individual success.
Murray 🙂 On Fri, Jun 13, 2025 at 2:29 PM Wayne S via cctalk <[email protected]> wrote: > Very nice article! > > Sent from my iPhone > > > On Jun 13, 2025, at 09:39, Liam Proven via cctalk <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > On Tue, 10 Jun 2025 at 00:44, Murray McCullough via cctalk > > <[email protected]> wrote: > >> > >> drawing on a computer screen > > > > That is such a vague way of putting it that I'm not surprised people > objected! > > > > He wrote MacPaint, which contained essentially the first modern > > toolbars in a GUI app and after which almost all other pixel-editors > > and many vector and other graphics editors are modelled. > > > >> linking to external files > > > > No... He wrote Hypercard, which was the first mass-market application > > to use _hyperlinks_ -- previously an obscure curiosity from Ted > > Nelson's Xanadu, which should have gone mainstream but didn't. > > > > Nothing to do with files. > > > > He also wrote LisaGraf which became Quickdraw. He designed and > > implemented regions, making it possible to efficiently draw into and > > update windows that were obscured by other windows. Smalltalk couldn't > > do that. He didn't believe it couldn't do, not knowing they'd skipped > > a very hard but very useful function, he worked out a way to > > efficiently implement it. He designed a dither algorithm that was as > > fast or faster than the dominant Floyd-Steinberg dither but could do > > areas of true black or white without a stipple. > > > > He designed much of the modern GUI, adding substantial functionality > > to Xerox PARC's Smalltalk, Alto and Star workstations' primitive GUIs. > > > > I wrote an obituary: > > > > https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/11/bill_atkinson_obituary/ > > > > > > -- > > Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven > > Email: [email protected] ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: [email protected] > > Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven > > IoM: (+44) 7624 227612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 > > Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053 >
