Goodbye Jef

According an early Sunday morning message by Dave Burstein on Dave Farber's IP list, Jef Raskin died on Saturday night. That information has now been confirmed in many places by many people. He's famous for many things, perhaps most notably for fighting tooth and nail to get himself added to the list of notables responsible for the Macintosh. That he played a big part has always been obvious, the precise details have been argued to death.

Despite his reputation for user interface ideas, I still remember him as the guy who tried to do smaller. To me, he's the guy who 'almost' made the dream of a TRS-80 Model 100 form factor for the Apple II come true. The Swyft was what I wanted, but it was eventually stillborn.

Around the time (1984 - 85) the idea started generating buzz, I was shuffling back and forth to work with a Model 100, largely used for notes and ideas, but also used to work on code (I could never put it all on the device). I'd come home and sync via a null model connection to my Apple II. What I really wanted a portable that was compatible with my home world with all the extra bells and whistles. In the end, I would up waiting until the spring of 1992 before I finally got close to what I'd wanted (with the PowerBook 100) and another decade to finally arrive (with the TiBook 667).