Burrell Smith
Burrell Smith | |
|---|---|
| Born | December 16, 1955 |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation(s) | Engineer, Inventor |
| Known for | Designed the circuit board for the original Macintosh. |
Burrell Carver Smith (born December 16, 1955) is an American engineer who, while working at Apple Computer, designed the motherboard (digital circuit board) for the original Macintosh. He was Apple employee #282, and was hired in February 1979, initially as an Apple II service technician.[1] He also designed the motherboard for Apple's LaserWriter.
Burrell was working in Apple's service department when he helped Bill Atkinson add more memory to an Apple II computer in an innovative fashion. Bill recommended him to Jef Raskin, who was looking for a hardware engineer to help him with his newly formed Macintosh project.[1] As a member of the design team,[2] Burrell designed five different motherboards during the course of Macintosh development, all of which used techniques based on Programmable Array Logic (PAL) chips to achieve maximum functionality with a minimal chip count and cost.
Burrell left the company before releasing Apple's "Turbo Mac" design platform, which included an internal hard drive and a further simplified chipset.
He was later a co-founder of Radius Inc.
Macintosh 128k
Smith's signature is molded into the case of the Macintosh 128k computers.
Personal life
Smith is retired and lives in Palo Alto.[3]
He reportedly had bipolar disorder during the 1990s.[4][5] In 1993, he was accused of "breaking windows, throwing a firecracker and leaving letters at the house" of Steve Jobs;[4] the case was dropped when he accepted treatment.[5] Actor Lenny Jacobson portrayed him in the 2013 film Jobs.
References
- ^ a b Hertzfeld, Andy (November 1979). "We'll See About That". Retrieved March 10, 2019.
- ^ Smith, Burrell C. (February 1984). "Macintosh System Architecture". BYTE. p. 32. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
- ^ Inside the Mac Revolution - Wired - 16 December 2004
- ^ a b "Former Apple Designer Charged with Harassing Steve Jobs". AP News. June 8, 1993. Retrieved October 1, 2018.
- ^ a b Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, page 253.
External links
- Revolution in the Valley Andy Hertzfeld's book about the development of the Macintosh.
- Folklore.org stories about Burrell Smith, stories of Smith's contributions written by other Macintosh team members
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