Bill Atkinson was Apple Computer's main developer of the user interface that first appeared on the Lisa and later on the Mac. A passionate photographer, Atkinson had the foresight in the late '70s and early '80s to document his UI work for Apple in a series of Polaroids.
The photos were published by another Mac pioneer, Andy Hertzfeld, in his book, "Revolution in the Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made." Through Herztfeld, Atkinson gave CNET News.com permission to republish them.
Here, the final soft-key based user interface, which is about to change radically...
Credit: Photos courtesy Bill Atkinson. Captions adapted from Andy Hertzfeld's book "Revolution in the Valley."
Time line: Three decades of Apple innovation The products, people and events that shaped the Mac maker.
Gallery 1: Early fonts, graphics Historic Polaroids chart evolution of the user interface.
Gallery 2: Radical shift Soft-key based UI becomes mouse/windows-based.
Gallery 3: Lisa desktop Creating double-click, menu bars and more.
Gallery 4: Sketching out the Mac Before MacPaint there was LisaGraf.
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