He
created the first Macintosh, but Jef Raskin was more than one of the world's best interface designers. He was a true renaissance man. Until his untimely death, Jef continued to design interfaces and operating systems with one goal in mind, making computers easier and more fun to use.
Jef's final work, now being continued by his son Asa reflects the high value he puts on play a spirit that informs his work as a musician, a composer, a model plane designer a mathematician who mastered of archery, ping pong, racing cars and life. Jef was a man with a mission: to help you fall back in love with your computer.
Computers shouldn't eat your work or get in the way of what you're doing, says Jef, known for creating computer interfaces that work with, not against against you, an approach that echoes the 1st law of robotics preventing injury or harm to humans.
Jef plays recorder from and Interview by Rebecca Fureigh
The Humane Interface
You shouldn't have to read a manual the size of a telephone book or have a degree in computer science to do your work, according to Jef. And you shouldn't have to spend your time fixing computer problems instead of doing your work.
Share Your Footage - Work With Us
Join our adventure charting the future of computing. Send us your edits of our shots and your ideas on shaping the movie. If you or people you know played a role in computer history, please send us footage or suggestions.
We also need technical advisors and model plane enthusiasts who can fly airplanes upside down, as well as footage to show how computers aren't serving users. We'll be shooting in New York, Colorado, Pacifica California, Cupertino, San Diego and Brentwood.
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Macintosh
Creator and "Humane Interface" author Jef
Raskin
March 9, 1943 - February 26th 2005
The Movie
Beginning with conversations on interface design and creating a better computer, Our footage reveals a remarkable man who changes the lives of people around him. Passionately described as an innovator with an unfailing moral compass and a gifted educator with an active commitment to play Jef attributes his success in part to a foundation based on music, math and physics.
Jef's Notes on our Movie full text of Jef's notes
My name will always be associated with something I did a quarter of a century ago: the creation of the Macintosh computer project when I worked at Apple. I cannot duck that connection, nor would I want to. It is an achievement of which anybody would be proud: the Mac was instrumental in changing the way computers look and feel, and the way in which they are used. The changes were based on a deeply-held code of the right and wrong ways to treat my fellow humans, and a study of psychology more than on any desire to advance technology per se, though it was necessary to do that, too in order to achieve my primary aims.
I was working on a far better way to use technology and writing two books when I recently learned that I have an incurable cancer. One book was to be "The Mac and Me", a personal history, a corrective to decades of misinformation on the origins and principles behind the Mac, and a tribute to my parents who taught the importance of uncompromising moral integrity by example. It was to be an autobiography that would tell what it was like to be with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in their garage in 1976, and to chart the changes, some funny and some ugly, that prominence and wealth brought out from theirs' and others' personalities. There will be some of that here.
he other book, "Archy: A Humane Computer Environment" was to describe a better approach to using computers; the system I call "Archy". Its advantages are obvious to beginners and ordinary users, but quite out of the main stream and difficult to understand for many of those immersed in current methods
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We Need You to Design a Great Film
Today the Internet makes possible a new way of creating a film. Calling on the resources of volunteers over the web created Linux, GNU, Apache, several recent books, and now a movie. Not every film should be made this way, but so much of our subject is the world around computers we couldn't resist
We're looking for guidance, your stories, your footage, and contributions of money, equipment, web and programming skills to keep the project going. Our vision will lead, supported by Jef himself. But you can help to guide our shooting, our editorial choices, and even the style and the direction we take. If you have the skills and time, your footage could become part of the film. Especially if you have access to the people who made computer history, share Jef's passions like model airplanes or music, or can illustrate how computers should be better in a funny or insightful way.
An evangelist for humane interfaces and a gifted teacher. Jef's enthusiasm for changing the way people work with computers started with a simple idea... computers should be better, and they can be.
This project, inspired by a lecture Jef gave at Fast Net Futures in 2004 documents his work on a humane environment he called "Archy." It provides a rare glimpse into a wildly creative and brilliant mind.
Note: Apologies. We're reformatting our video. Footage of Jef will be back soon.
View video
Blox created by Jef
Jef's workshop where he sometimes builds his own tools
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Creative Commons License
All segments running 5 minutes or less are available freely for non-commercial use. We will work with any non-commercial project that needs longer segments, including complete interviews. Email dave (at) dslprime.com. We are retaining copyright on the complete film for a commercial release.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons License.
We'll be sharing our original footage on the net and asking you for ideas about how to put it together to share it with the world. We were inspired to work this way by the open source and by Dan Gilmor. Gillmor posted each chapter We The Media on the web as it was written, and incorporated some incredible feedback.