Bill Atkinson gone also

 Okay I hope this trend doesn't continue.   First, notes about John Young passing.  Then a retrospective about John Doyle.   As I was about to close the computer for the day, John Markoff sent along his obit for Bill Atkinson, which is a very nice tribute to an incredibly inventive guy   https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/technology/bill-atkinson-dead.html

Bill was 'bigger than life' in the early Apple days.   HyperCard was perhaps his biggest intellectual contribution from my standpoint; others loved QuickDraw and of course it and 'regions' enabled the entire graphical metaphor of the Lisa, followed by the MacIntosh.   

We got close to some of this work, for various reasons.  Despite the laudatory comments from Markoff, I believe that it is fact that HP, and in particular my Colorado Springs team, got the patents for pull-down menus for our logic analyzers circa 1976, long before Bill's more visible contributions.  Much later, 1990, our team at HP Sunnyvale, with HP VUE, "won" the Design Awards for icon designs rather than the Mac.  See the HP Phenomenon, p. 235

june 1, 1990, great falls, virginia: For the second time in two years, HP graphics artist and user interface designer (and leader of HP’s Corporate Engineering Industrial Design team) Barry Mathis got a letter from the Industrial Designers Society of America. This one opened, “It is with great pleasure that the jurors bestow the 1990 Gold IDEA to the HP Visual User Environment . . . with over 535 products, VUE 2.0 stood out.” The three-dimensional elements of VUE—called Motif—had won the year before, not long after the design swept the OSF Graphical User Interface (GUI) competition against forty-two other entries.50 BYTE magazine also selected Motif as its User Interface Software of the Year in 1990. Once again, HP had solid reason to be proud of the industrial design and human factors heritage begun forty years earlier. When Microsoft later embedded the “New Wave look-and-feel” of the Motif design widgets into Windows—Windows 3.1—it gave them near parity with Apple’s MacIntosh GUI, and ignited a patent suit filed by Apple against Microsoft and HP over intellectual property rights for industrial design.51 To many observers, it was a laughable suit—the common Silicon Valley view was that Apple itself had stolen the Xerox PARC GUI design shamelessly; to sue others for building an open systems software design tool was ludicrous.   in a fast-track decision, the judicial system agreed with HP and Microsoft that the suit was groundless, and the suit was tossed out.

I had worked with Doug Engelbart starting in 1966 because of my novel (for the day) graphics box, and we put a lot of user-interface design thought and time into these areas over many years.  It is from this 'first-hand' perspective that one could really appreciate the work and genius of Bill Atkinson.

David Smith, now at Croquet Corp, had a nice squib a few months back about Bill that adds to Markoff's 'regions' story: A very interesting story is that when Bill Atkinson was watching the demos of dragging windows he thought he was seeing the actual window being moved and the screen being updated dynamically. That was not what was actually happening though - they were using a much faster to draw outline and then the screen refreshed after the drop. But Bill, not realizing it was a very good magic act, decided he needed to figure out how they did what they hadn't actually done. The result was Bill invented "regions", perhaps one of the most beautiful concepts in computer graphics ever realized. It, more than anything enabled the Macintosh user experience we first saw. A quick aside was that Dan Ingalls, who gave the demo to Atikinson and Jobs - invented BitBlt, which was the foundational element of the Smalltalk/Alto graphics engine and how it was able to do so much. I actually wrote the first realtime 3D adventure/shooter for that first Macintosh. I was actually able to use regions for most of the rendering and bitblt for updating the screen. Did you know that the first 128k mac enabled page flipping? And just like on the Alto, the screen ate all the memory - actually on the Alto, the memory would eat the screen...

Smith himself is a major contributor to this space, and we cited Smith's work in filing for our AstroVirtual patents several years ago.   I cannot help but think that this era is drawing to a close--Atkinson was one of the giants who defined it all.

Czatch-up on previous news--John Doyle

 A year ago, I posted a small note about John Doyle's passing (c.f.  March 20, 2024)

And I vowed to pen a few words in that note, but time intervened and that never happened.

Given the recent passage of John Young, I thought about that, and I found Doyle's obituary notice   https://www.mercurynews.com/obituaries/john-l-doyle-portola-valley-ca/

John, as the obit notes, was an engaging, incredibly smart, curious, adventuresome sort.   Like, the one-liner about becoming a outside window washer on the 19-story Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco.  

Nor did it mention that his sponsor in America was George Young, in Omaha, NE, which among other things led to George's son Richard and daughter Nancy both working for HP at various times.  So, irony--Richard Young and Nancy Young each consulted for HP CEO John Young (no relation).

I first met John when he came to Colorado Springs along with Bill and Dave and Barney Oliver to review what became the Logic Analyzer line, circa 1971.   John had just returned to HP after leaving to become CEO of a Hexcel Corporation division launching a new ski and a line of ski equipment.   The experiment didn't last long, and Packard offered John a 'new products' overview role to return to HP.   Later, he became HP's VP of Personnel, and then still later the VP of HP Labs, where he was instrumental in hiring Joel Birnbaum and launching the RISC computer architecture.   Still later, he became VP of Computing Systems before retiring.  His obit omits all of these titles and roles, simply saying "HP provided John the chance to wear many hats as engineer and manager."

In 1978, I got a phone call at HP from "John Doyle" who did not introduce himself (assuming that I remembered him from years earlier), but asking "are you the Chuck House who signed the cairn at the top of Hunewill Peak in the Sierra?"    Which, yes I was, and I'd done so twenty years earlier while working as a wrangler in Bridgeport, CA (population 324).   We 'bonded' over mountain climbing stories.  It also turned out that John and his family had stayed at the Hunewill Ranch multiple times over the years, and it was just total coincidence that he had climbed that mountain and found my name.  Four other names had been entered in the intervening twenty years--not exactly as popular as Mt. Everest.

Still later, I moved to Palo Alto to start Corporate Engineering, working directly for John, one desk away.  It was a fabulous learning experience, from a sagacious fun-loving 'graybeard by then (at HP, turning 50 was 'ancient' but John never let that slow him down).  Our start date was April 1, 1982, a date that I objected to, but he said, "NO, NO, that's the day the Royal Air Force (Britain) was founded."

I got to know John a bit differently as well.  I had married Nancy Young, mentioned above (met her when she consulted with HP Colorado Springs), and when we separated, John offered me time to 'settle' by moving into his Portola Valley guest home, which was wonderful because I got to know his wife Judy as a result.   The two of them were a wonderful couple, and they were very supportive at a tough time.

John and I continued to meet long after we had both retired from HP, and he and Bill Terry were the two most thorough readers of the 2009 book that Ray Price and I produced about HP (The HP Phenomenon).  He offered pages of corrections and amplifications, including that "Personnel" was really "Human Resources" which has an altogether different ring to it.  His last note to me, just a newsworthy catch-up note, was lengthy, hand-written, about six months before he passed.   Indeed, an elegant man.

John Young accomplishments outside HP

 Previous posts noted points about John Young's HP career, but the obituary accurately and appropriately mentioned his work on the national stage as well;

"John's impact extended well beyond the corporate world. Appointed by President Reagan in 1983, he chaired the President's Commission on Industrial Competitiveness, uniting leaders across sectors to enhance U.S. innovation and economic strength. He later founded the Council on Competitiveness to continue this vital work. He also co-chaired President Clinton's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology and helped establish both the Computer Systems Policy Project and Smart Valley, Inc."

"John served on the boards of numerous global corporations, including Chevron (and ChevronTexaco), Wells Fargo, GlaxoSmithKline, Lucent Technologies, Agere Systems, Affymetrix, and Novell. He was also active in the Business Council and Business Roundtable."

Ray and I debated whether to include the passages in The HP Phenomenon about John Young's discouragement with George Bush Sr.'s ignorance about technology, and Young's subsequent role in helping to get Clinton elected,, but after watching the horror show in Washington today, and the greedy toadies who masquerade as thoughtful leaders in Silicon Valley today, I am thankful that we included pages 376-379 describing John's singular efforts and the unfortunate aftermath with David Packard.   Not one of Packard's more sterling moments; certainly one of Young's most salient efforts.

Bay area residents probably have little appreciation for another role.   The obit mentions that John was "a passionate outdoorsman.  He was an avid fly fisherman who traveled the world and frequently returned to Alaska and Idaho's Teton River. He was also a skilled pilot and enjoyed pheasant hunting each fall."  This outdoor perspective played out for the Bay area.  John and Rosemary contributed heavily to the Peninsula Open Space Trust, this note from Rosemary's obituary: "Rosemary was a natural philanthropic entrepreneur and enjoyed being active in the community. The Peninsula Community Foundation was a small organization with a part-time executive when she joined the board. She became chair in 1971, hired a full-time director, and then helped to build a robust organization to raise awareness and funds that were matched with community nonprofits that needed support. The Peninsula Community Foundation merged with a similar community foundation in 2006 to form the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, now one of the largest in the country. Rosemary was an early and enthusiastic supporter of women’s causes. She volunteered to help start the Center for Research on Women as an independent institute at Stanford in 1974. Using her network and fundraising skills, the institute was launched, and its innovative approach was quickly successful and became fully endowed. Rosemary always had a special interest in open spaces and the outdoors. She was a founder and the first Board chair of the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) at its creation in 1985. An innovative organization that raises funds to buy important parcels of open space as they became available. Thousands of acres have been preserved for everyone’s enjoyment."

John Young accomplishments at HP

 This list, VERY abbreviated in my view, is taken from the obituaries published this week about John (see the previous post).

Legacy of leadership at HP: John's tenure as CEO was marked by groundbreaking strategic initiatives.

- Computing innovation: Spearheaded the development of the HP 3000 minicomputer, UNIX-based systems, personal computers, and the PA/RISC architecture.

- Printing revolution: Led HP's successful entry into the laser printer market with innovative microprocessor integration.

- Quality and Manufacturing: Launched the ambitious "10x quality goal" in 1980, driving a company-wide focus on excellence.

- Global expansion: Established local leadership around the world, making HP a truly global enterprise.

- Time-to-Market: Accelerated innovation cycles to meet rapidly evolving industry demands.

Throughout these changes, John upheld and evolved the "HP Way," blending innovation with an enduring culture of respect, ethics, and technical rigor.

I could add much to each of these stories, and in fact, our book (Ray Price and Chuck House, The HP Phenomenon, Stanford Press, 2009) does so (some even say ad nauseum,  but I think that is a chary description).

But let's add some points here.   Yes, many of those computing innovations happened under John's tenure.  There were of course others who played key roles

1. John did spearhead the HP-PA RISC program, and he did drive the entry (over Packard's vote) to enter PC's, although it was a long struggle.   The original HP 3000 and HP UNIX machines owed little directly to John, IMHO.  The handheld calculators weren't mentioned, and John was not involved with them to any degree.

2. Dick Hackborn gets full credit for the HP laser printing success, along with unsung heroes at HP Labs including Don Hamond (and Hewlett's own role with Canon).   John was a skeptic for a very long time, feeling that HP was just 'fronting' for Canon and the partnership might not work.  It did work, to the tune of several hundred billion dollars for HP, and John did of course support that.

3. Quality.   This was one of John's unique contributions, commissioning Craig Walter to lead a 10x campaign that was brilliant, and made HP stand out.   One wishes that succeeding CEOs had understood this aspect, which has in places tarnished considerably by now.   John brought the idea from a Stanford study group, and he was one of very few US CEOs who appreciated this topic before Kanban and Kaizeen and Deming and the Baldrige award became buzz-words.

4. Global expansion.   The insight and original leadership here was Bill Hewlett.  John was supportive throughout, but was not to my knowledge ever a key leader on this one.  The company was, however, as HP was one of the first US companies with operations in the UK, western Europe, and Japan, and then later in India and Mexico among others.

5. Time-to-market.    John grabbed the "Return Map" ideas that we intro'd in Corporate Engineering, and trotted them first to HP Accounting, and then to Fortune Magazine, and even got Ray Price and me into the Harvard Business Review.   John's enthusiasm for this was unparalleled, and without his bold encouragement, it would never have happened.  The net was roughly a 2x speed-up in product introductions while maintaining or improving quality/cost.

Those who knew the 'inside skinny' would probably also note that John and I had a quite complicated relationship.   He often winced at some of my insouciant comments in speeches, sometimes saying later that I was "the Loyal Opposition ".   But my respect and reverence for his perspective and leadership is second only to my admiration and awe about Bill and Dave themselves.   What a privilege it was to work with him so long and so closely.  

End of an era

 The San Jose Mercury-News this morning carried John A. Young's obituary.   93 years old, married to Rosemary for 67 years until she passed in 2021.   Wonderful obit in terms of generosity about John, and his many accomplishments.   It is available fairly widely, at Legacy.com and other places.   https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/heraldandnews/name/john-young-obituary?id=58523462.   See for example, the Klamath Falls, OR newspaper (where John and Rosemary grew up)   https://www.heraldandnews.com/john-young-obit/article_ebc6845e-a4db-4fd5-9fa1-d6bae0509936.html

The opening speaks for the man: "Visionary leader, technology pioneer, dedicated public servant, John A. Young, who succeeded founders Bill Hewlett and David Packard as CEO of Hewlett-Packard . . . .   A transformative force in technology and business, John helped shape the trajectory of Silicon Valley, modern computing and U.S. industrial policy. As CEO of HP from 1978 to 1992, he led the company through extraordinary growth - transforming it from a pioneer in test and measurement equipment into a global computing powerhouse. During his tenure, HP's annual revenue grew from $1.3 billion to $16 billion."

"John also served as chairman of President Reagan's Commission on Industrial Competitiveness, playing a key role in strengthening America's position in high technology sectors. He was widely respected for his integrity, humility and even-tempered leadership."

After earning his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, John began his career at Hewlett-Packard as a marketing planner in the microwave division. His steady confidence and visionary leadership saw him rise rapidly through the company: regional sales manager, marketing manager, vice president of the Electronic Products Group, and executive vice president of the Instrument, Computer, and Components groups. In 1977, when founders Hewlett and Packard retired, they selected John as their successor. True to form, John downplayed the moment, telling reporters, "Three letters - CEO - moved from Hewlett to me. That's all."

Ernie Arbuckle, long on HP's board, had a nice statement about John that rings true for me:

"His character left a lasting impression on all who knew him. "John is the kind of person everyone would like to work with-someone who keeps his promise, is easy to get along with, shows good judgment, and tries to see the other person's side of things."