Bill Atkinson worked at Apple Computer in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of California, San Diego, where Apple Macintosh visionary Jef Raskin was one of his professors. He designed and implemented HyperCard, the first popular hypertext system. Atkinson was also part of the Apple Macintosh development team and was key in the development of the MacPaint application, among others. Atkinson also designed and implemented QuickDraw, the fundamental toolbox that the Macintosh used for graphics. QuickDraw's performance was essential for the Macintosh's Graphical user interface's success. Interestingly, the multiple-window capability of QuickDraw used on the Macintosh desktop and by most other Macintosh applications was not used in HyperCard and MacPaint.
As of 2002, he was involved full-time in fine-art digital nature photography.
