Charles P. Thacker

Digital Library

ACM-IEEE CS Eckert-Mauchly Award

USA - 2017

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For pioneering contributions to the design and development of personal computer architecture including the Xerox Alto, the first tablet computers, and cache coherence protocols.

Press Release

ACM A. M. Turing Award

USA - 2009

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For the pioneering design and realization of the first modern personal computer -- the Alto at Xerox PARC -- and seminal inventions and contributions to local area networks (including the Ethernet), multiprocessor workstations, snooping cache coherence protocols, and tablet personal computers.

Charles P. (Chuck) Thacker is a pioneering architect, inventor, designer, and builder of many of today's key personal computing and network technologies. During the 70s and early 80s at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Chuck was a central systems designer and main pragmatic engineering force behind many of PARC's technologies, including: Alto, the first modern personal computer with a bit-map screen to run graphical user interfaces with WYSIWYG fidelity and interaction. All of today's personal computers with bit-map screens and graphical user interfaces descend directly from the Alto.

In addition, he invented the snooping cache coherence protocols used in nearly all small-scale shared-memory multiprocessors, pioneered the design of high-performance, high-availability packet- or cell-switched local area networks in the AN1 and AN2, and designed the Firefly, the first multiprocessor workstation. Almost 30 years after the Alto Chuck designed and built the prototype for the most used tablet PCs today.

Press Release

ACM Fellows

USA - 1994

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For conceiving and guiding the development of the Xerox Alto System demonstrating that a distributed personal computer system can provide a desirable and practical alternative to time-sharing.

ACM Software System Award

USA - 1984

Xerox Alto System

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Butler W. Lampson, Robert W. Taylor, Charles P. Thacker

For conceiving and guiding the development of the Xerox Alto System, which clearly demonstrates that a distributed personal computer system could provide a desirable and practical alternative to time-sharing.

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