Bill Atkinson, creator of HyperCard and MacPaint, dies

Sad news that Bill Atkinson, the legendary designer/programmer of both MacPaint and HyperCard, has died at the age of 74 from pancreatic cancer. The New York Times has a good obituary: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/technology/bill-atkinson-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.NU8.Ywss.GiBwWKBSel9x&smid=url-share

Also worth perusing is the Folklore.org: The Original Macintosh website which has a number of good stories which involve Bill. I suggest starting with Bill’s own reflections of working for Apple, written on the fortieth anniversary of his joining the company - Folklore.org: Joining Apple Computer - and then Andy Hertzfeld’s recollection of when Apple management asked programmers to estimate on a weekly basis how many lines of code that they had written - Folklore.org: -2000 Lines Of Code

Finally, Bill was interviewed a couple of times by Leo on Triangulation. They’re well worth a watch!

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I read about this yesterday. I’m expecting Leo to say something on today’s TWiT.

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And as expected, it was the lead off item.

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