Bill Atkinson
Bill Atkinson | |
|---|---|
Atkinson in 2012 | |
| Born | March 17, 1951 Ottumwa, Iowa, U.S. |
| Died | June 5, 2025 (aged 74) |
| Education | University of California, San Diego University of Washington |
| Occupation(s) | Engineer, inventor, nature photographer |
| Known for | Part of the Apple Lisa and Macintosh 128K development teams; conceived, designed, implemented HyperCard, the first popular hypermedia system; his 2004 book, Within the Stone |
| Website | billatkinson |
William Dana Atkinson (March 17, 1951 – June 5, 2025) was an American computer engineer, computer programmer, and photographer. Atkinson worked at Apple Computer from 1978 to 1990. Some of Atkinson's noteworthy contributions to the field of computing include Macintosh QuickDraw and Lisa LisaGraf (Atkinson independently discovered the midpoint circle algorithm for fast drawing of circles by using the sum of consecutive odd numbers), marching ants, the menu bar, the selection lasso, MacPaint (FatBits), HyperCard, Atkinson dithering, and the PhotoCard application program.