Computer History Museum

Hertzfeld, Andy oral history, part 1 of 2

<p>Andy Hertzfeld was born in 1953 in Philadelphia, studied applied math and CS at Brown, and pursued a PhD in CS at Berkeley. After seeing the Apple II debut in 1977, he started writing, publishing and selling Apple II software. Hired by Apple in 1979 initially in the Apple II team, Hertzfeld befriended and aided Burrell Smith in the Macintosh team and eventually joined him there, becoming its second software engineer. Hertzfeld completed the port of QuickDraw from Lisa to Macintosh and wrote much of the Toolbox code and many desk accessories. Conflict with manager Bob Belleville contributed to Hertzfeld leaving Apple after the Macintosh launch. Afterwards, Hertzfeld developed Switcher, which allowed multitasking on the Macintosh for the first time, and helped organize the 1984 Hacker’s Conference.</p>

Item Details

Date
09-24-2025 (Made)
Type
Document
Catalogue number
300000188
People
Hansen Hsu (Interviewer)
Andy Hertzfeld (Interviewee)
Category
Transcript
Format
PDF
Credit line
Computer History Museum
Extent
43 pages
Place of publication
North America/USA/CA/Mountain View
Language
English
Acquisition number
2025.0173
Subject
UC Berkeley, Apple II (Computer), Apple Lisa (Computer), NeXT
Archive collection
CHM Oral History Collection
Archive hierarchy
CHM Oral History Collection