ACM Turing Award Goes to Creator of First Modern Personal Computer

Saw this in the news today: http://www.acm.org/press-room/news-releases/2010/turing-award-09/ NEW YORK, March 9, 2010 ? ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery today named Charles P. Thacker the winner of the 2009 ACM A.M. Turing Award http://awards.acm.org/2010/turing-award.cfm 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. The Turing Award, widely considered the ?Nobel Prize in Computing,? is named for the British mathematician Alan M. Turing. The award carries a $250,000 prize, with financial support provided by Intel Corporation and Google Inc.