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SAN MATEO, California – They came from near and far, and they waited in line to get in. Nearly 600 people packed the Bayside Performing Arts Center here for Jef Raskin's memorial Sunday. Apple Computer employee No. 31, the so-called "father of the Macintosh," was someone many called a Renaissance man.
Raskin, 61, died Feb. 26 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. At the time of his death, he was close to finishing a simplified user interface known as "Archy" designed to do away with unnecessary mouse movements.
Though the gathering was somber at times, an upbeat mood also produced humor. And many of those who knew him thought that was fitting for Raskin, who was known for his love of life and for finding play in nearly everything he did.
"I went over and joined the (Macintosh) project because where Jef and his friends were was always the place to be," said Brian Howard, another central member of the Mac development team. "It was a lot of fun, and it was a heady time, because we really did feel like we were going to change the world and make computers a different thing than they had been."
Joining Raskin's work group was an opportunity for Daniel Kottke, Apple employee No. 12 and another early Macintosh development team member, to be around "far and away the coolest group of people" at Apple.
"They were all really interesting characters," Kottke said. "I would attribute it partly to Jef's multifaceted personality and (his way of) attracting interesting people."
While Raskin will likely always be best known for his role in creating the Macintosh, that by no means defines his life. He will be remembered for his passion for his family, music, radio-controlled airplanes, bicycle racing, mathematics, teaching and mentoring, and creating new forms of human-computer interactions.
"It isn't right that the student should go before the teacher," one of Raskin's early teachers, Ronald Genise, told the crowd. "Even as a 12-year-old, Jef enjoyed pushing envelopes ... and (creating) not only new knowledge for himself but, as it turned out, for countless others as well."
Genise recounted how, after discussing number systems in class one day, he'd been ready to move on to another subject.
"He gleefully announced to me that he finally created a new number system whose power exceeded that of the real number system," Genise said. "And with that gleam still in his eyes, he proceeded to describe the elements of that system and its properties. He referred to that system as the 'J' number system, naturally."
Clearly, Raskin's aptitude for math and computing started early. Few were as far ahead of their time as Raskin.
"'He said that a computer should be a household appliance,'" said Aenea Raskin, Jef's daughter, who also quoted his cousin Miriam Meisler: '"He said that in 1963, when he was 20.'"
Many people know Raskin feuded with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, not speaking since 1982. In the wake of his death, that story has been told again and again in countless obituaries. But to some in attendance Sunday, that unfortunate episode in Raskin's life is hardly worth recounting.
"The guy has such huge scope to his life," said Bruce Damer, who runs the computer museum DigiBarn and has posted a comprehensive website memorializing Raskin. "There's more than just that very simplified story."
Damer remembered an interview Raskin had given when Mac OS X was first announced. The reporter, Damer recalled, was trying to get Raskin to say that the new operating system was a significant step forward.
"Jef looks at the camera and says, 'No,'" Damer said. "'It's no evolution at all. It's no advance at all.'" And while many Mac zealots were likely rankled by Raskin's assessment of OS X, Damer said the operating system didn't solve being "stuck in this morass of overlapping windows."
While there was no shortage of paeans to Raskin's user-interface work Sunday, his family and friends talked more about his fascination with flight and his love of fun and play.
Yesso Tekerian described Raskin's innovative work on radio-controlled airplanes, which included his design to help the Forestry Service study difficult-to-reach terrain. Tekerian said big companies like Boeing or Lockheed Martin would have charged a seven-figure fee and taken two years to complete their design, but Raskin did the job for just four figures.
"There are those rare occasions where the U.S. government does get a bargain," Tekerian said.
Another friend, Kathleen Mandis, recalled how Raskin had chosen a hillside house because it had a huge window that allowed him to see the planes taking off from and landing at San Francisco International Airport.
His homes also illustrate a key aspect of this legendary man.
"He'd always had the childhood dream of houses with secret doorways," said colleague Brian Howard. "He made sure he built those in, so there were always little hidden doors that carried you off into all kinds of places."
