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Charles P. Thacker
Computer scientist

Charles P. Thacker

Famoose for

Leading the design of the Xerox Alto computer.

Xerox Alto · Turing Award

Born
26 February 1943
Birthplace
Pasadena
Died
12 June 2017

More people

Ada LovelaceRecognising what a programmable machine could do beyond arithmetic.Alan TuringHelping break Enigma and laying foundations for computer science.Grace HopperHelping make computer programming readable in English-like language.

Charles P. Thacker

American computer designer whose work helped establish interactive personal computing. He also contributed to networking, research workstations and tablet hardware.

Early life

Berkeley education

Born in Pasadena, graduated in physics from UC Berkeley in 1967 and joined Project Genie, which explored time-sharing computers.

Career

  1. 1970s

    Xerox PARC

    Led the Alto computer project and worked on related systems.

  2. 1983

    DEC research

    Helped found the Systems Research Center.

  3. 1997

    Microsoft Research

    Helped establish its Cambridge laboratory.

Contributions

Xerox Alto

Led hardware design for the influential personal computer.

Turing Award

Received recognition for pioneering computer systems.

Beyond work

Family

Was survived by his wife Karen, two daughters and two grandchildren when he died in 2017.

Sources & photo creditBiography and career ↗Biographical references ↗Family — biographical source ↗Distinctive contribution — source ↗

Original photograph. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.

Photo: Marcin Wichary from San Francisco, U.S.A.. CC BY 2.0 · Original image. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.