Computing pioneer Chuck Thacker wins Turing Award
By Donald Melanson 
posted March 10th 2010 2:51PM
posted March 10th 2010 2:51PM
Chuck Thacker may not be quite the same household name as some other computing pioneers, but it's pretty hard to overstate the influence he's had on the industry, a feat for which he's now be honored with the A.M. Turing Award -- widely considered to be the "Nobel prize of computing." While Thacker is now a "Technical Fellow" at Microsoft, he first made a name for himself at Xerox PARC, where he not only helped design and realize the very first modern computer, the Alto, but co-invented Ethernet, and contributed to a range of other projects that have had a lasting impact on computing to this day. Later, while at Microsoft Reseach, Thacker oversaw the design of the very first Tablet PC prototypes, and he continues to lead up a computer-architecture group at the company and be involved with various research efforts. Of course, that's only scratching the surface -- hit up the links below for a more complete background of the man's work, and head on past the break for a short video put together for the occasion by Microsoft. 
I thought this said made a computer that passed the turing test and freaked out.
"Chuck T'hacker" lol
I just like the job title of "Technical Fellow". I hope to acquire that title some day just so brag about how cool my title is.
I learned about Thacker in computer science my freshman year of high school.
Hats off to him.
@AlexSanchez
He's deserved this for a looooooong time.
*to
At first I thought the title said Chuck Norris
Author: It may feel early in the A.M. to you, but please edit A.M. to ACM -- Association for Computing Machinery.
@duckduck
Alan Mathison Turing
So THIS is the guy who invented the internet with Al Gore?
Must have been his assistant.
Well done, good sir.
To be fair, Alan M. Turing's name fits the A.M., but still, the award is called the "ACM Turing award".
@duckduck
http://awards.acm.org/homepage.cfm?awd=140
The ACM refers to it as the A.M Turing Award.
I stand corrected, thank you. Does that mean that anyone but the ACM should call it the ACM A.M. Turing award?
@duckduck
Dunno. As long as there are people out there qualified to win it I am a happy camper. We need more people like Chuck Thacker et al.
So where's the read link for folks using the iPhone Engadget app?
@Paradox
Usually clicking the accompanying photograph takes you to the source article (although it's not always the case).