Bill Atkinson, the visionary Apple engineer who made computers accessible to millions around the globe, has passed away.

Computer engineer Bill Atkinson has passed away at the age of 74. A creative mind and pioneer of design in the development of Apple’s early Mac computers, Atkinson’s family announced on Facebook that he died from pancreatic cancer at his home in Portola Valley, California, on June 5.

Apple CEO Tim Cook commented on the death of the individual who worked at the Cupertino company in the 70s and 80s, supporting the development of Macintosh. Atkinson was directly responsible for creating applications such as the graphic editor MacPaint — one of the first digital drawing tools — and the HyperCard system (1987), an innovative program that combined text, images, and interactive links (considered the predecessor of the World Wide Web). “He was a true visionary, whose creativity, courage, and pioneering work will inspire us forever. We send our thoughts to his loved ones,” he wrote through his personal account on X.

Before the introduction of Macintosh in 1984, software programs were controlled through complex commands. But Atkinson made machines accessible to millions of people without specialized computer knowledge. He also contributed to the development of drop-down menus and the “double-click” function.

The QuickDraw Revolution

The software designer’s work is also behind QuickDraw, the 2D graphics library that defined the pixel as the basic unit of graphic information, as opposed to vector image systems based on geometric objects defined by mathematical attributes such as position. Atkinson laid the groundwork for the Macintosh graphical interface.

Steven Levy, editor of Wired magazine, referred to Atkinson in the book Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer that Changed Everything, not only as a man with “piercing blue eyes” and a “Pancho Villa-style mustache,” but also as someone who set out to “reinvent the wheel” and ultimately “ended up inventing it.”

QuickDraw was the invisible engine that brought the Macintosh to life. Without this program, there would have been no MacPaint, no interactive graphical windows, and no user-friendly visual experience. It was one of the technical reasons why it marked a before and after in the eighties and beyond.