Charles P. Thacker | |
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.jpg) Thacker in 2008 | |
| Born | Charles Patrick Thacker (1943-02-26)February 26, 1943 Pasadena, California, U.S. |
| Died | June 12, 2017(2017-06-12) (aged 74) Palo Alto, California, U.S. |
| Education | University of California, Berkeley (BS) |
| Known for | Xerox Alto |
| Awards | IEEE John von Neumann Medal(2007) Turing Award(2009) Computer History Museum Fellow(2007)[1]Eckert–Mauchly Award(2017)[2] |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Computer Science |
| Institutions | Xerox,DEC,Microsoft Research |
Charles Patrick "Chuck" Thacker (February 26, 1943 – June 12, 2017) was an American pioneer computer designer.[3] He designed theXerox Alto, which is the first computer that used amouse-drivengraphical user interface (GUI). In 2009, he won the ACMTuring Award.
Thacker was born inPasadena, California, on February 26, 1943.[4] His father was Ralph Scott Thacker, born 1906, an electrical engineer (Caltech class of 1928[5]) in the aeronautical industry.[6][7][8][9][10] His mother was the former (Mattie) Fern Cheek, born 1922 inOklahoma, a cashier and secretary, who soon raised their two sons on her own.[11]
He received his B.S. inphysics[12] from theUniversity of California, Berkeley in 1967. He then joined the university's "Project Genie" in 1968, which developed the pioneeringBerkeley Timesharing System on theSDS 940.[13]Butler Lampson, Thacker, and others then left to form the Berkeley Computer Corporation, where Thacker designed the processor and memory system. While BCC was not commercially successful, this group became the core technologists in the Computer Systems Laboratory atXerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).[4]
Thacker worked in the 1970s and 1980s at the PARC, where he served as project leader of theXerox Alto personal computer system,[14] was co-inventor of theEthernetLAN, and contributed to many other projects, including the firstlaser printer.
In 1983, Thacker was a founder of theSystems Research Center (SRC) ofDigital Equipment Corporation (DEC), and in 1997, he joinedMicrosoft Research to help establishMicrosoft Research Cambridge inCambridge,England.
After returning to the United States, Thacker designed thehardware for Microsoft'sTablet PC, based on his experience with the "interimDynabook" at PARC, and later theLectrice, a pen-based hand-held computer at DEC SRC.
From 2006–2010 Thacker was a research contributor to the Berkeley Research Accelerator for Multiple Processors (RAMP) based upon the Berkeley Emulation Engine FPGA platform, which sought to explore new processor designs through massive emulation. He advised and consulted on the follow-on BEE platforms, the BEE2 and BEE3, and in turn used the hardware for his own research explorations.
Because the impetus for theRISC-V development was the paucity of open-source processor designs for the RAMP project (both Asanovic and Patterson were PIs), it is fitting that Thacker played a role in this important future technology.
Thacker died of complications fromesophageal cancer on June 12, 2017, inPalo Alto, California, aged 74.[15]
In 1994, he was inducted as a Fellow of theAssociation for Computing Machinery.[16]
In 1996, he was named a Distinguished Alumnus in Computer Science at U.C. Berkeley.[17]
In 2004, he won theCharles Stark Draper Prize together withAlan C. Kay,Butler W. Lampson, andRobert W. Taylor.[18]
In 2007, he won theIEEE John von Neumann Medal.[12]
In 2007, he was inducted as a Fellow of theComputer History Museum for "leading development of the Xerox PARC Alto, and for innovations in networked personal computer systems and laser printing technologies."[19]
In 2010, he was named by theAssociation for Computing Machinery as the recipient of the 2009Turing Award[20][21] in recognition of his pioneering design and realization of theAlto, the first modern personal computer, and in addition for his contributions to theEthernet and thetablet computer.
Thacker received anhonorary doctorate from theSwissFederal Institute of Technology[12] and was aTechnical Fellow at Microsoft.[12]
"This guy is a real genius," saysAlan Kay, a researcher who worked with Thacker atPARC and a fellowTuring Award winner. "We don't like to sling that word around in our field, but he is one. He is magic."
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