Charles P. 'Chuck' Thacker

Microsoft researcher Charles P. Thacker, awarded the 2009 ACM A.M. Turing Award in recognition of his pioneering design and realization of the first modern personal computer, and for his contributions to Ethernet and the tablet computer, died Monday, June 12, at the age of 74, after a brief illness. Thacker, born in Pasadena, CA, on Feb. 26, 1943, earned his bachelor of science degree in physics from the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) in 1967. In 1968, Thacker joined UC Berkeley's "Project Genie" to finance a graduate degree in physics. Instead, he recalled, "I went to work for this computer project," which the Berkeley Time-sharing System, commercialized by Scientific Data Systems as the SDS 940. Thacker joined Butler Lampson (recipient of the 1992 ACM A.M. Turing Award) and others to launch the startup Berkeley Computer Corporation (BCC).