Before even pursuing his undergraduate degrees, Raskin had already received an award from the American Rocket Society for "Outstanding Contributions in the Associated Field of Astronautics." He has been a member of The Academy of Model Aeronautics, the National Academy of Aeronautics since 1960, as well as an honorary member of the American Rocket Society. He is also, more pertinently, a member of ACM and the IEEE , a.k.a. Eye-triple-E and life member of the Academy of Model Aeronautics.

While designing an analog computer for the State University of New York's biology department, Raskin earned a B.A. in Mathematics in 1964 and B.S. in Physics (with minors in Philosophy and Music) the following year.

Simultaneously, he was a consultant and programmer for the Columbia-Princeton Computer Music Project, and director of the Old Southaven Chamber Ensemble in Southaven, NY. Not surprisingly, in light of his later achievements, some 34 years later, he was named one of SUNY Stony Brook's 40 most outstanding graduates

The 1960s saw Raskin touring with the San Diego Symphony as a percussionist, being part of group shows at the Museum of Modern Art in New York ("The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age") and the Brooklyn Museum ("Art and Technology").

Continuing his education at Pennsylvania State University, he received an M.S. in Computer Science (he has been named as one of the ten most outstanding graduates among the 72,000 living graduates of its school of engineering). Among the products he has created, there were two notable standouts in 1967: an electronic music studio and QDGS (Quick Draw Graphics System). Years later, QuickDraw inspired an ex-pupil of his from San Diego, one Bill Atkinson, to design and build what later became Apple's internal graphics system.

He furthered his postgraduate studies at San Diego in electronic and computer music, where through the mid-1970's, he held positions as varied as associate professor of music, assistant professor of visual arts, and assistant instructor of bicycling. He was also the staff harpsichordist at a local coffee house and had various one-man shows at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, at U.C. San Diego and at Florida State University.

In 1973, he wrote and scored the film "Smog Patterns" which was aired on PBS. The following year he conducted the San Francisco Chamber Opera Company. His patents (some pending) and registered trademarks through the '70's included a construction technique for an airplane wing and a digital electronic tuner, the placement of a user interface onto ROM and the one-button mouse and method for its use.

Raskin's other jobs through the 1970's included those of packaging designer, freelance writer and consultant, advertising and portfolio photographer, in addition to five years on the faculty of the San Francisco Community Music Center. He also represented the U.S. at the Edinburgh (Scotland) Festival of the Arts in 1976.

In 1978, Raskin became Apple Computer's 31st employee. Starting as Manager of Publications and New Product Review, he swiftly moved through Manger of Applications Software to Manager of Advanced Systems, where he created what became known as the Macintosh Project, on which he worked from 1980 until his departure in 1982.

Raskin says, "I conceived of the Macintosh (and coined the name) in response to my belief that to reach a larger marketplace, future computers had to be designed from the user interface out. Up to that time, at Apple and most other manufacturers, the concept was to provide the latest and most powerful hardware, and let the users and third-party software vendors figure out how to make it usable.

"When I first started to work on the Macintosh, the Lisa was also just beginning its development. Originally, it was a character-generator-based machine. After I explained the Macintosh architecture and the advantages of an all-bit-mapped computer to them, the Lisa team decided to follow my graphic approach."

From its inception until 1982, Raskin headed the Macintosh development team, reporting to Steve Jobs and Tom Whitney.

Several of the companies Raskin founded reflect his diverse interests: Jef's Friends Model Aircraft Co., a remote controlled model aircraft (1974-1979) which became the foundation for Anabatic Aircraft in 1992; Bannister and Crun, a software and manuals company (1976-1978); Information Appliance, Inc., human interface design and implementation as hardware and software (1982-1989); and Verity Recordings, classical music company whose first CD was released in 1989.

Of Information Appliance, Raskin comments, "The venture owners disbanded it after the failure of the Gavilan computer -- which they mistakenly saw as similar to our product--during a general retrenchment in the venture community. Those VCs that were supportive of our company continuing were precisely those that were using our products."

Since 1989, Jef Raskin has been an independent interface and system design consultant, and a writer, with current and recent contributing editor positions including Wired, Forbes ASAP, Mac Home Journal, Model Airplane News, and the Pacifica Tribune. He is also author of over 300 articles, and the book "The Humane Interface."

His clients include corporations as varied as Motorola and Bayer, and are based in countries from Japan to Switzerland.

He is also a visiting scholar and lecturer at Stanford University, Stony Brook, De Paul, The University of Toronto, and others, marrying his passions of music and computer research.

Jef Raskin died on February 26th, 2005 at the age of 61 from pancreatic cancer.