Brian Howard was the 32nd employee of Apple Computer, and one of the original four members of the Macintosh Project team. Early Apple employees describe how Brian's personality -- calm, full of warmth and self-effacing humor -- was instrumental in making the original Macintosh come to fruition. Jef Raskin was the Mac's visionary, but he and Steve Jobs couldn't stand each other. Brian acted as a go-between, and without him there would be no Mac. He worked there for 30 years and was Apple's longest continuous employee (longer than Steve Wozniak or Jobs).

Although I was always in awe of Brian's role in computer history, his loss is also very deep for those of us who knew him otherwise. Besides being an engineer, he was also deeply creative. He sang in choirs and played early music instruments like the cornetto and the recorder. That's how he entered my life: He met my parents in an early music ensemble at Stanford and ended up as a close friend, even acting as a best man at their wedding. As a family friend, he was a fixture in my life, and even when I was the littlest kid he talked to me like I mattered, like I had something to say.

Brian died of cancer on Feb. 1. He was 65. Even in his last days, when he came home from the hospital after many years of cancer treatments, he still had a sense of humor. When asked if he needed anything he replied, "I could use some hair." He is missed for all these things: the sweetness, the humor, the music and the historic role he played in making the machines that are now so instrumental to our lives, including the very laptop on which I write this remembrance.