I bought my first Mac in 1985 after using one in high school. and Bill Atkinson was the reason. It’s hard for me to describe properly, but when I used MacPaint it felt like it should have been impossible for such a small machine to do what it was doing.

It was the filled oval that sold me on the Mac. When you selected the filled oval from the palette and clicked on the canvas, it would pin the oval to that starting point and then you could in any direction. The way the oval would disappear into the click-point and then reappear on the other side felt amazing to me.

And the reason it worked is because there was no delay or lag. The Mac made all the other PCs of the time feel like old, antiquated nothings.

I’m not qualified to say Bill Atkinson was a genius or the best, but wow did his program blow me away and I’ve never forgotten it. Or his awesome mustache.