“Think about surfing on the front edge of a wave,” Jobs recalled telling Atkinson in that meeting. “It’s really exhilarating. Now think about dog-paddling at the tail end of that wave. It wouldn’t be anywhere near as much fun. Come down here and make a dent in the universe.”
Atkinson accepted the job offer—and as a result, he never finished his PhD.
Atkinson would go on to develop some of Apple’s key software, including QuickDraw, which allowed old Apple computers to draw images and windows on the screen, and HyperCard, an easy-to-use software development kit so creators could build their own applications. He also notably developed the graphical user interface of the Apple Lisa, a precursor to the Macintosh, and later several of the Mac’s user interfaces. But his very first job was to develop a program that could track stock portfolios. The software would auto-dial the Dow Jones service to get quotes, and then hang up.
His second project at Apple, though, was ultimately how Atkinson won Jobs’ respect.
Jobs had been resisting using a new programming language for the Apple II, one of Apple’s earliest and most popular personal computers that spawned many successors—including the Lisa, the Apple III, the Apple II Plus, Apple IIe, Apple IIc, Apple IIc Plus—though most of those computers, save for the Apple IIe, were abject failures. Jobs at the time had resisted giving the Apple II a new programming language, thinking BASIC, the simple programming language that powered the original Apple I, was all the Apple II needed going forward. Atkinson, however, pressed Jobs to build something better.
“Since you’re so passionate about it, I’ll give you six days to prove me wrong,” Jobs told Atkinson, according to Isaacson’s biography of the Apple co-founder.
Sure enough, in just six days, Atkinson had created a specialized version of Pascal, a high-level programming language made especially for the Apple II. According to Isaacson, “Jobs respected him ever after.”
