JEF RASKIN, CREATOR OF THE MACINTOSH COMPUTER, DIES AT 61.

He created the Macintosh computer as employee number 31 at Apple in the early 1980s, revolutionizing computer interface design. Jef invented "click and drag" and many other methods now taken for granted by computer users. He named the Macintosh project after his favorite variety of apple, the McIntosh.

In his 2000 book The Humane Interface, Jef coined the term and founded the field of cognetics, "the ergonomics of the mind," transforming interface design into an engineering discipline with a rigorous theoretical framework. His book, translated into more than nine languages, has gone through numerous printings and become the standard text for more than 100 computing courses around the world.

Jef Raskin in a Guardian interview last year:

There has been immense progress, primarily in the richness of applications. But all this power is lost on many people, and impedes the utility of it for the rest, because of the unnecessary complexity of using computers.The quest for CPU power has been largely defeated by bloated software in applications and operating systems. Some programs I wrote in Basic on an Apple II ran faster than when written in a modern language on a G4 Dual-processor Mac with hardware 1,000 times faster.

I have only ever used Apple Macs and that's the way I intend to keep it. But everyone who uses a computer owes a debt to this man and, as his work lives on through his son, I am certain that future generations of computer users will be indebted to his work on improving the computer/human interface.