Bill Atkinson was raised in Los Gatos, California, the son of two medical doctors. He studied undergraduate chemistry and biochemistry at UC San Diego, as well as neuroscience at the University of Washington. He was recruited to Apple Computer in 1978 as employee number 51 and served as a member of the original Lisa and Macintosh software design teams. He wrote the QuickDraw graphics primitives used by all applications on Lisa and Mac.
He also wrote the Lisa Window Manager, Event Manager, and Menu Manager, as well as the MacPaint bitmap painting program shipped with every Mac. He is also responsible for the HyperCard software construction kit for non-programmers. He co-founded General Magic to help invent personal communicators.
Atkinson is a nature photographer, selling in galleries and at www.billatkinson.com. He also published "Within the Stone", an art book of polished rock photographs. He developed the PhotoCard app and service for users to make custom postcards.
