Chuck Thacker, Butler Lampson, Jim Gray - legends in their own time

  Chuck Thacker, Microsoft Research Labs, was just awarded the IEEE John von Neumann award for outstanding achievement in computer science. The prize is given annually by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The group cited Thacker for playing a "central role in the creation of the personal computer and the development of networked computer systems."

Many years ago I had the privilege of working with Chuck every day at Digital Equipment Corp's research labs in Palo Alto. Those were the days. Chuck Thacker, Butler Lampson, and Jim Gray all worked for DEC at the time, and later all moved to Microsoft. Butler Lampson won the same IEEE award in 2001. Jim Gray won the Turing Award in 1998, often referred to as the Nobel Prize for computing. These guys are giants in computer science. I am honored to have worked with them.

Chuck Thacker was involved in inventing many of the fundamental computing technologies we all use today. Things like the first personal computer (Alto), the first laser printer, the first cable modem that allowed Internet over cable TV wires, and the first Tablet PC. Chuck also worked with Bob Metcalf at Xerox PARC where he developed Ethernet networking, and the first computer time sharing system.

A few months ago I found this really revolutionary company, Nantero, that is developing semiconductors and microprocessors based on carbon nanotube technology. I know nothing about semiconductors so I asked Chuck to take a call with Nantero. Chuck understood the technology in about 2 minutes and then proceeded to deep dive on processor geometry, manufacturing techniques, the laws of physics, and probable market applications of the new technology. Wow! This guy knows something about everything.

The DEC research labs also employed other computer science legends of lesser fame. Louis Monier and Mike Burrows were the inventors of the first web search engine. I had the pleasure of working with both of them at AltaVista. They now work at Google.

Congratulations to Chuck Thacker on a lifetime of achievement in computer science.

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Comments

[orcmid]

Nice post Don. Also interesting to learn about Chuck Thacker's many contributions.

However, the first computer timesharing system shouldn't be one of them (it wasn't done at Xerox PARC, founded in the 70s, and the story of why they built their own timesharing computer is good for separate laughs). The first timesharing systems were available in the early 60s and the history at Dartmouth and MIT might actually move it back into the late 50s. SRI and Doug Englebart may have a piece of this story too.

[Umesh Kumar]

does chuck/Jim/... write blogs...or their viewpoint on current computer science things somewhere ?
any other place we can hear from such great people.

thanks for telling about them

[Mihai Budiu]

I had the chance to recently interview Chuck Thacker too: http://www.budiu.info/blog/2007/02/22/an-interview-with-chuck-thacker. He is truly an amazing guy.