“The Turing Award, often called the Nobel prize of computer science, was announced on Tuesday and the 2009 winner was Charles P. Thacker,” Steve Lohr reports for The New York Times. “Mr. Thacker, 67, was a member of the storied crew who shaped the future of computing with a series of hardware, software and networking advances at Xerox PARC during the 1970s. The others included Butler Lampson, Alan Kay, Robert Metcalfe and Charles Simonyi.”
“Mr. Thacker was the lead designer of the Alto, the prototype of the modern PC, with the technology for modern graphics, pick-and-click icons to guide users, multiple on-screen windows and desktop publishing,” Lohr reports. “Apple first brought these technologies to the commercial mainstream, and later Microsoft used them.”
MacDailyNews Take: …poorly.
Lohr continues, “After Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center), Mr. Thacker became a researcher at Digital Equipment’s lab in Silicon Valley and he joined Microsoft Research in 1997. At Microsoft, he led the design team that built the prototypes for Tablet PCs.”
MacDailyNews Take: Whoops. Genius goes to Microsoft, immediately loses his touch. That place would suck the life out of anybody. The bubbly Rachael Ray could go to work at the Microsoft commissary and, within a week, she’d be sullenly doling out scoops of mashed potatoes while glancing longingly at the nearest window ledge.
Lohr continues, “[Thacker’s] Alto vision was fully realized by Apple’s Macintosh. And today, there is a chance Apple will once again create a hit in a field Mr. Thacker tilled first, as Apple brings its much-anticipated tablet, the iPad, to market next month. Mr. Thacker is reserving judgement on the iPad and its prospects. ‘I haven’t seen one yet, so my opinion would have no value,’ he said.”
MacDailyNews Take: Fair enough. Let’s check with his fellow PARC veteran, Alan Kay, then: Legendary designer Alan Kay says Apple iPad will rule the world – February 22, 2010. And there you go.
Lohr continues, “The Tablet PC, he admits, has lagged behind so far. ‘It didn’t go as well as we had hoped,’ Mr. Thacker said.”
MacDailyNews Take: You don’t say? Don’t worry, the cavalry’s here now.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Going from PARC to Microsoft is like going from BMW to GM. Shudder. Despite that, congratulations to Mr. Thacker on receiving The Turing Award for his amazing work!
@writerguy: “We had to put up with eight years of Bush, and I don’t remember seeing too many Bush tirades mixed into Mac discussions…”
Though you had your chance, didn’t you?
But hey, I had to put up with the tirades of Hollywood on Oscar night during President Bush’s term, tirades of the Press, and tirade of college campus when it came to Bush. As you can see tirades infiltrate wherever they happen to infiltrate. It can’t be stopped!
@Tiger Leopard
I’ll have you know that I was very calm and deliberate in my automobile and political emotional argument writings.
regarding the automotive analogy: not GM, Toyota.
At least GM gets most of the important things right.
As for BMWs: great cars overall, but not perfect. iDrive, mass bloat, the Bangle Butt, and surprising lapses in material quality have lessened the appeal of the BMW. Audi, on the other hand, has been improving by leaps and bounds — much like Apple.
I drive a 08 Vette. Arguably one of the best engineered cars in America and a wonderful car. I bought it because I could not afford a 911 or R8 Audi or an M5. Once you drive those guys. You would never say that American cars are on the top. Perhaps one day if they keep improving. Incidentally, the interiors of mid-high end US cars are a disgrace.
@Sarah
I can assure that the Nobel Peace committe made up by the Norwegian Stortinget has members from left to right. But considering your comment I’ll guess you’re lightyears from a prize. Am I correct?
@RotnApple
The “Old Europe” moved to the US because they couldn’t stand the “New Europe” way of giving the Nobel Peace Prize
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“”Mr. Thacker was the lead designer of the Alto, the prototype of the modern PC . . .”
Technology works in steps where one person’s great idea is built upon by another’s, then another’s, etc. Thus the requirement for collaboration as well as competition. The Alto was an early source of GUI concepts. But the Alto was a huge failure.
“Apple first brought these technologies to the commercial mainstream, and later Microsoft used them.”
Incorrect. Apple took the visible ideas of the Alto GUI, wrote their own code for those ideas, recognized the huge limitations of the Alto GUI and built upon it to the Nth degree over time until we have Mac OS X, the single greatest GUI OS thus far in human history.
What exactly did Microsoft do? They got some GUI code and ideas from Apple, but they made the decision to stick much more closely to the older Alto concepts, oddly avoiding a lot of Apple’s innovation. Thus to this day we still see the idiotic A:, B:, C:, D: puke puke drives and an inane file system with resources scattered hither and yon all over the computer. Windows v1 was a catastrophe. Windows v2 was a catastrophe. Windows v3.0 was a catastrophe. It was Windows v3.1 that was the breakthrough, at yet it was a clunky PITA to use because it was STILL so Alto.
Conclusion: The Alto was a stepping stone. But it was not by any means a great accomplishment in user friendly GUIs. It sucked bad as a GUI. But it was remarkable because it was still a profound step away from the horrors of the Character Line Interface.
Who made the GUI usable and even desirable was not Xerox, but none other than Apple. And they continue on that same course today, thank goodness. You don’t have to be a smoochy fanboi to recognize the facts of history.
Ha, Ha Fucking Ha!!!
AppleJack said –
“… For nearly a decade American cars have been judged superior to any European cars for engineering, mechanical reliability, and especially dollar value …”
Ha, Ha Fucking Ha!!!
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HELLO !!!!!!!!!
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When you consider that this award goes back to 1966, and was first awarded to Alan Perlis, who worked on the Whirlwind computer at MIT in 1952 – so credit and a big ups’ to those amazing pioneers.