Forty eight of the early employees of the Macintosh division signed the die for the inside of the Macintosh 128K. If you've still got one of these Macintosh computers around, look inside, and you'll see their signatures. The thinking was that Macintosh was a work of art, and artists sign their work. Who were these people? And what are they doing today?
Collette Askeland: Collette designed the printed circuit board for the main logic board. She is managing the CAD support staff at Apple.
Bill Atkinson: Bill wrote QuickDraw and MacPaint (and later HyperCard). He is chief technologist at General Magic.
Bob Belleville: Bob was the engineering manager of the division. He is in the corporate research and development department of Silicon Graphics.
Mike Boich: Mike was the original software evangelist who convinced companies to write software. He is the chairman of Radius.
Bill Bull: Bill worked on the "no-fan solution" decreed by Steve Jobs, plus the cables, keyboard, and mouse. He is the manager of product design for Apple Business Systems.
Matt Carter: Matt was in charge of the Macintosh factory. He is starting a new company.
Berry Cash: Berry was a marketing and sales consultant. He is a venture capitalist in Texas.
Debi Coleman: Debi was the controller of the Macintosh division She is the vice president of materials operations at Tektronix.
George Crow: George designed the analog board, video, and power supply. He is director of central engineering at SuperMac.
Donn Denman: Donn wrote desk accessories and MacBASIC. He is programming developer tools at Apple.
Chris Espinosa: Chris supervised the writing of the manuals and technical documentation. He works at Apple on the Apple-IBM relationship and runs the project offices for Taligent and Kaleida.
Bill Fernandez: Bill was an engineering jack-of-all-trades. Bill was laid off during Apple's restructuring a few months ago and is consulting.
Martin Haeberli: Martin worked on the Memory Manager and co-authored MacTerminal. He works for Apple's higher education business unit.
Andy Hertzfeld: Andy wrote most of the Macintosh Toolbox-that is, he was the division's software wizard. He is a vice president and programmer at General Magic.
Joanna Hoffman: Joanna wrote the first marketing plan for the division. She is a vice president of marketing at General Magic.
Rod Holt: Rod worked on the power supply He is currently retired and sailing boats.
Bruce Horn: Bruce designed the Finder and completed it with Steve Capps. He recently finished a doctorate in computer science at Carnegie Mellon University.
Brian Howard: Brian ensured that the digital designs would work and be manufacturable. He is an engineer in the portable computing division of Apple.
Steve Jobs: Steve was the division general manager. He is CEO of NeXT Computer, Inc.
Larry Kenyon: Larry worked on the file system, drivers, and boot code. He is a programmer in the Newton group at Apple.
Patti King: Patti managed the engineering department's software library. She is a full-time mom.
Dan Kottke: Dan built prototypes and troubleshot board-level problems. He is a father's rights activist and runs a hardware start-up company.
Jerold Manock: Jerry managed the industrial design engineers. He has an industrial design company in Vermont.
Mike Murray: Mike was the director of marketing. He is the vice president human resources and administration at Microsoft. Go figure.
Mary Ellen McCammon: Mary Ellen was an area associate for the marketing people. She is completing a master's degree in psychology-how appropriate considering some of the people she worked with.
Terry Oyama: Terry worked on the industrial design of Macintosh. He is an industrial designer at Radius.
Ben Pang: Ben worked on the industrial design of Macintosh. He is an industrial designer at Apple.
Jef Raskin: Jef started the Macintosh project in the sense of creating a computer which featured a small footprint, low price, and a bit mapped display. He is a human interface design consultant and writer.
Ed Riddle: Ed worked on the design of the keyboard. He is a writer in the areas of technical, marketing, and spiritual issues.
Brian Robertson: Brian managed purchasing and supplier sourcing. He is the director of Macintosh product operations at Apple.
David Roots: David worked on the industrial design of the Macintosh computer. He is an industrial designer at Radius.
Pat Sharp: Pat was Steve's administrative assistant. She is in charge of staffing and development functions at Apple.
Burrell Smith: Burrell designed the digital board, and was the division's hardware wizard. He is doing research in Palo Alto, California.
Bryan Stearns: Bryan worked on the user interface for MacBASIC. He works at Apple developing Newton programming tools.
Lynn Takahashi: Lynn was Steve's area associate. She is a manager of marketing programs at General Magic.
Bud Tribble: Bud was the manager of software engineering. He is a vice president at SunSoft, the software subsidiary of Sun Microsystems.
Randy Wiggington: Randy wrote MacWrite. He is a software engineer at EO.
Linda Wilkin: Linda managed engineering documentation. She is operations manager at Clarify, a Silicon Valley software company.
Woz: Woz was an inspiration to Andy and Burrell. He signed the case because they felt that Macintosh was a descendant of the Apple 11. Also, Macintosh initially used Woz's disk controller technique and other Woz tricks. Woz is teaching fifth graders how to use computers.
Laszlo Zsidek: Laszlo was a tooling and manufacturing engineer. He works in the portable computing division of Apple.
If you're a Macintosh fanatic, you'll notice that other early members of the Macintosh division like Steve Capps and Susan Kare are not listed. This is because the case was signed in mid-1982 (eighteen months before the announcement date) because shipping was supposedly imminent.
Almost everything about Macintosh was ahead of its time.
Guy was unable to locate the following people who signed the
case:
Angeline Lo (programmer), Hap Horn (engineer), Ivan Mach (engineer),
Pamela Wyman (programmer), Peggy Alexio (area associate), Ron
Nicholson (engineer), Steve Balog (engineer), and Vick Milledge
(human resources) could not be located.
Guy Kawasaki is the author of Hindsights: The Reflections and Breakthroughs of Remarkable People (Beyond Words Publishing) and is a former software evangelist in the Macintosh Division.