Andy Hertzfeld (born April 6, 1953), was a key member of the original Apple Macintosh development team, and some would consider him a pioneer among software engineers. From the early days of Apple Computer, through the design, development and promotion of open source software with the Open Source Applications Foundation, his key contribution has been making computers easier and more fun to use. April 6 is the 96th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (97th in leap years). ... 1953 is a common year starting on Thursday. ... The iMac G5, Apples flagship consumer desktop. ... Software engineering (SE) is the profession concerned with specifying, designing, developing and maintaining software applications by applying technologies and practices from computer science, project management, and other fields. ... Apple Computer, Inc. ... Open source refers to projects that are open to the public and which draw on other projects that are freely available to the general public. ... Computer software (or simply software) refers to one or more computer programs and data held in the storage of a computer for some purpose. ... The Open Source Applications Foundation (OSAF) is a non-profit organization whose purpose is to effect widespread adoption of open source computer software. ... A computer is a device or machine for processing information according to a program — a compiled list of instructions. ...

Biography

The early years

Hertzfeld's Apple Computer business cards listed his title as "Software Wizard", and he wrote large portions of the Macintosh's original system software including much of the burned-in ROM code, the User Interface Toolbox, and a number of innovative components now standard in many graphic user interfaces, like the Control Panel and Scrapbook. Rom is also the name of a toy and comic book character Rom (Spaceknight). ...

After graduating from Brown University with a Computer Science degree in 1975, Hertzfeld attended graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1978, he bought an Apple II computer and soon began developing software for it. He was hired by Apple Computer as a Systems Programmer in 1979 and developed the Silentype printer and the first 80-column card for the Apple II. Brown University is an Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island. ... Wikibooks Wikiversity has more about this subject: School of Computer Science Open Directory Project: Computer Science Collection of Computer Science Bibliographies Belief that title science in computer science is inappropriate Categories: Computer science ... 1975 was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ... A graduate school or grad school (American English), or, in British English a postgraduate school, is a school that awards advanced degrees, with the general requirement that students must have earned an undergraduate (bachelors) degree. ... University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (also known as Cal, University of California, UC Berkeley, UCB, or simply Berkeley) is a public coeducational university situated in Berkeley, California, USA to the east of San Francisco Bay, overlooking the Golden Gate. ... 1978 was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1978 calendar). ... The Apple II was one of the most popular personal computers of the 1980s. ... This page refers to the year 1979. ...

Professional life

After a shakeup in the Apple II team and at Hertzfeld's request, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs added him to the recently formed Macintosh team in February, 1981. Working for Bud Tribble and alongside Bill Atkinson and Burrell Smith, Hertzfeld became one of the primary software architects of the Macintosh Operating System, which was considered revolutionary in its use of the graphical user interface (GUI). Steve Jobs gives a keynote address. ... February is the second month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1981 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Guy Bud Tribble, MD, PhD, is Vice President of Software Technology at Apple Computer. ... Bill Atkinson worked at Apple Computer in the late 1970s and early 1980s. ... Burrell Smith is an engineer who, while working at Apple Computer, designed the digital board for the original Macintosh. ... Original 1984 Mac OS desktop Current 2005 Mac OS X desktop Mac OS, which stands for Macintosh Operating System, is Apple Computer’s name for the first operating systems for Macintosh computers. ... A graphical user interface (or GUI, sometimes pronounced gooey) is a method of interacting with a computer through a metaphor of direct manipulation of graphical images and widgets in addition to text. ...

Since leaving Apple in 1984, he has co-founded three new companies—Radius (1986), General Magic (1990) and Eazel (1999), where he helped to create the Nautilus file manager for the GNOME desktop on Linux. Now, with the Open Source Applications Foundation, Hertzfeld's work is directed toward promoting innovation and ease of use on the Linux platform. 1984 is a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Radius was a computer hardware firm founded by Burrell Smith. ... 1986 is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... General Magic was a company co-founded by Bill Atkinson, Andy Hertzfeld and Marc Porat that developed new kind of handheld communications device they called a personal intelligent communicator, which was a PDA precursor that stressed communications. ... 1990 is a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Eazel was a computer software company based in Mountain View, California. ... 1999 is a common year starting on Friday Anno Domini (or the Current Era), and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ... Nautilus is the official file manager for the GNOME desktop. ... A typical garden gnome. ... This article is about Linux-based operating systems, GNU/Linux, and related topics. ... The Open Source Applications Foundation (OSAF) is a non-profit organization whose purpose is to effect widespread adoption of open source computer software. ... This article is about Linux-based operating systems, GNU/Linux, and related topics. ...

In early 2004, he opened folklore.org, a web site devoted to collective storytelling that contains dozens of anecdotes about the development of the original Macintosh. The stories have been collected in an O'Reilly book, Revolution in the Valley, published in December 2004. A website, Web site or WWW site (often shortened to just site) is a collection of webpages, that is, HTML/XHTML documents accessible via HTTP on the Internet; all publicly accessible websites in existence comprise the World Wide Web. ... An anecdote is a very brief tale narrating an interesting or amusing biographical incident. ... OReilly Media (formerly OReilly & Associates, IPA /əraɪli/) is an American media company established by Tim OReilly, primarily focusing on books related to computer programming. ... 2004 is a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

In August 2005, Hertzfeld joined Google. [1] Google, Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG), is a U.S. public corporation, initially established as a privately-held corporation in 1998, that designed and manages the Internet Google search engine. ...

Personal life

In the late 1980s, Hertzfeld began dating a woman named Joyce. Steve Jobs disapproved of her, and attempted to get Hertzfeld to start seeing another woman who he approved of. When Joyce discovered the incident and broke up with him, Hertzfeld was driven by guilt to continue to support her financially. In addition, Hertzfeld supported two of Jobs' former girlfriends, Chris-Ann and Christina Redse.

When Hertzfeld got engaged to Microsoft executive Linda Stone in 1997, she told him to stop supporting them. Hertzfeld refused, and Stone called off the wedding. Instead, Hertzfeld married Joyce. When Jobs attempted to persuade Hertzfeld to return to Apple shortly after Jobs' return as CEO in 1997, it was Joyce who played a significant part of Hertzfeld's decision to turn down the offer. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) is the worlds largest software company, with over 50,000 employees in various countries as of May 2004. ... 1997 is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is the job of having the ultimate executive responsibility or authority within an organization or corporation. ... 1997 is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Reference

• Deutschman, Alan (2000). The Second Coming of Steve Jobs. Broadway Books. ISBN 0-7679-0433-8.
• Hertzfeld, Andy (2004). Revolution in The Valley. O'Reilly. ISBN 0596007191

External links

• Differnet.com — Andy Hertzfeld's personal homepage; a collection of websites either designed and/or hosted by him
• Folklore.org — A collection of first-hand accounts of the early days of the Macintosh
• NerdTV interview (September 2005) with Hertzfeld by PBS's Robert X. Cringely, available in audio, video, and text transcript