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ACM Awards 2009 Turing Prize To Alto Creator Charles Thacker
scumm writes "This year's Turing Prize has been awarded to Charles Thacker, whom they describe as (among other things) the 'creator of the first modern personal computer.' From the ACM's announcement: 'ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery today named Charles P. Thacker the winner of the 2009 ACM A.M. Turing Award for his pioneering design and realization of the Alto, the first modern personal computer, and the prototype for networked personal computers. Thacker's design, which he built while at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center), reflected a new vision of a self-sufficient, networked computer on every desk, equipped with innovations that are standard in today's models. Thacker was also cited for his contributions to the Ethernet local area network, which enables multiple computers to communicate and share resources, as well as the first multiprocessor workstation, and the prototype for today's most used tablet PC, with its capabilities for direct user interaction.' For further reading, the Wall Street Journal has an article providing more background about Mr. Thacker and the Turing Prize. In the spirit of full disclosure, the submitter feels compelled to point out that this Mr. Thacker is his uncle, and that he thinks this is really cool."
I can't ever hear Alan Turing's name anymore without getting angry all over again at the disgraceful way he died.
He essentially founded modern Computer Science. He also lead the team that cracked the German codes during WW2. You could make a case that we owe the man for everything we have today. This is the kind of guy who should have statues in DC and Trafalgar Square. So how did we thank him? By driving the poor guy to his death, that's how.
You see, none of that other cool stuff he did mattered in the slightest because he was gay.
F'n ingrates.