Burrell Smith | |
---|---|
Born | December 16, 1955 |
Nationality | American |
Occupation | Computer engineer |
Known for | Macintosh |
Burrell Carver Smith (born December 16, 1955) is a retired American computer engineer who created the first wire wrap prototype of the motherboard for the original Macintosh at Apple Computer. [1] He became Apple employee #282 in February 1979 as an Apple II service technician. [2] He designed the motherboard for Apple's LaserWriter.
Smith was working in Apple's service department when he helped Bill Atkinson add more memory to an Apple II computer in an innovative fashion. Atkinson recommended him to Jef Raskin, who, along with Steve Wozniak, was looking for a hardware engineer for their newly formed Macintosh project. [2] As a member of the design team, [3] Smith prototyped five different motherboards using techniques based on Programmable Array Logic (PAL) chips to achieve maximum functionality with a minimal chip count and cost. His signature is molded into the original Macintosh case, along with the signatures of the rest of the Macintosh team.
Smith left the company before the release of Apple's Turbo Mac design platform, with an internal hard drive and a further simplified chipset.
He co-founded Radius Inc.
Smith is retired and lives in Palo Alto. [4]
He reportedly had bipolar disorder during the 1990s. [5] [6] In 1993, he was accused of "breaking windows, throwing a firecracker and leaving letters at the house" of Steve Jobs [5] and the case was dropped when he accepted treatment. [6] Actor Lenny Jacobson portrayed him in the 2013 film Jobs .
Lisa is a desktop computer developed by Apple, released on January 19, 1983. It is generally considered the first mass-market personal computer operable through a graphical user interface (GUI). In 1983, a machine like the Lisa was still so expensive that it was primarily marketed to individual and small and medium-sized businesses as a groundbreaking new alternative to much bigger and more expensive mainframes or minicomputers such as from IBM, that either require additional, expensive consultancy from the supplier, hiring specially trained personnel, or at least, a much steeper learning curve to maintain and operate. Earlier GUI-controlled personal computers were not mass-marketed; for example, the Xerox Alto was manufactured only for Xerox and select partners through Xerox PARC from the early to mid-1970s.
Jef Raskin was an American human–computer interface expert who conceived and began leading the Macintosh project at Apple in the late 1970s.
The Macintosh Plus computer is the third model in the Macintosh line, introduced on January 16, 1986, two years after the original Macintosh and a little more than a year after the Macintosh 512K, with a price tag of US$2,599. As an evolutionary improvement over the 512K, it shipped with 1 MB of RAM standard, expandable to 4 MB, and an external SCSI peripheral bus, among smaller improvements. Originally, the computer's case was the same beige color as the original Macintosh, Pantone 453; however, in 1987, the case color was changed to the long-lived, warm gray "Platinum" color. It is the earliest Macintosh model able to run System Software 5, System 6, and System 7, up to System 7.5.5, but not System 7.5.2.
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Andrew Jay Hertzfeld is an American software engineer who was a member of Apple Computer's original Macintosh development team during the 1980s. After buying an Apple II in January 1978, he went to work for Apple Computer from August 1979 until March 1984, where he was a designer for the Macintosh system software.
Susan Kare is an American artist and graphic designer, who contributed interface elements and typefaces for the first Apple Macintosh personal computer from 1983 to 1986. She was employee #10 and Creative Director at NeXT, the company formed by Steve Jobs after he left Apple in 1985. She was a design consultant for Microsoft, IBM, Sony Pictures, Facebook, and Pinterest. As of 2023 Kare was an employee of Niantic Labs. As a pioneer of pixel art and of the graphical computer interface, she has been celebrated as one of the most significant designers of modern technology.
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Michael "Scotty" Scott is an American entrepreneur, who was the first CEO of Apple Computer from February 1977 to March 1981. Formerly director of manufacturing at National Semiconductor, Scott was persuaded by Mike Markkula to take the CEO position at Apple, as the co-founders — Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak — were both seen as insufficiently experienced for the job at the time.
The Command key, ⌘, formerly also known as the Apple key or open Apple key, is a modifier key present on Apple keyboards. The Command key's purpose is to allow the user to enter keyboard commands in applications and in the system. An "extended" Macintosh keyboard—the most common type—has two command keys, one on each side of the space bar; some compact keyboards have one only on the left.
Radius Inc. was an American computer hardware firm founded in May 1986 by Burrell Smith, Mike Boich, Matt Carter, Alain Rossmann and joined by other members of the original Macintosh team like Andy Hertzfeld. The company specialized in Macintosh peripherals and accessory equipment. It completed its IPO in June 1990.
Guy L. "Bud" Tribble was Vice President of Software Technology at Apple Inc.
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Joanna Karine Hoffman is a Polish-American marketing executive. She was one of the original members of both the Apple Macintosh team and the NeXT team.
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The Mac, short for Macintosh, is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The name Macintosh is a reference to a type of apple called McIntosh. The product lineup includes the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops, and the iMac, Mac Mini, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro desktops. Macs are sold with the macOS operating system.
Macintosh BASIC, or MacBASIC, was both a comprehensive programming language and a fully interactive development environment designed by Apple Computer for the original Macintosh computer. It was developed by original Macintosh team member Donn Denman, with help from fellow Apple programmers Marianne Hsiung, Larry Kenyon, and Bryan Stearns, as part of the original Macintosh development effort starting in late 1981. Andy Hertzfeld said, "A BASIC interpreter would be important, to allow users to write their own programs. We decided we should write it ourselves, instead of relying on a third party, because it was important for the BASIC programs to be able to take advantage of the Macintosh UI, and we didn't trust a third party to 'get it' enough to do it right."
Revolution in the Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made is a nonfiction book written by Andy Hertzfeld about the birth of the Apple Macintosh personal computer. The author was a core member of the team that built the Macintosh system software and the chief creator of the Mac's radical new user interface software. The book is a collection of anecdotes tracing the development of the Macintosh from a secret project in 1979 through its "triumphant introduction" in 1984. These anecdotes were originally published on the author's Folklore.org web site.
Through the Looking Glass, also known as Alice, is a 1984 video game written for the Apple Lisa and Apple Macintosh computers. Written by a member of the Lisa and Mac teams, Steve Capps, it was one of the earliest video games on the Mac platform, part of the only games disk officially sold by Apple Computer during that era.
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Robert L. Belleville is an American computer engineer who was an early head of engineering at Apple from 1982 until 1985.