Computers were not always cool. The founding fathers carved this stuff out for us all, making something where there once was nothing. Some notes on Thacker :
Thacker joined U.C. Berkeley's "Project Genie" in 1968, which developed the pioneering Berkeley Timesharing System on the SDS 940. Butler Lampson, Thacker, and others then left to form the Berkeley Computer Corporation, where Thacker designed the processor and memory system. While BCC was not commercially successful, this group became the core technologists in the Computer Systems Laboratory at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
Thacker worked in the 1970s and 1980s at the PARC, where he served as project leader of the Xerox Alto personal computer system, was co-inventor of the Ethernet LAN, and contributed to many other projects, including the first laser printer.
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I wanted this simple portrait to look like something from the General Electric Company Newsletter- an in-house publication my Dad would bring home once a week from G.E. when he worked there in the 70's and 80's. He'd go to work every day and come home with tales of inspired genius from the workaday lives of the engineers he collaborated with. Collecting patents in the same way we collect photography awards, these guys practiced inspired acts of problem solving every day, and shrugged it off as if it was simply their job.
All of this was on my mind as we scouted the hallways of Microsoft Research- different coast, different lifetime, but the parallels are the same.
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And of course, age 71, Thacker goes into the office to work, think and wrestle with the issues of contemporary computer science. And to pause a moment for the photograph I had the good fortune to be able to create.
3 comments:
beautiful, simple, powerful, appropriate, perfect.
Collecting patents in the same way we collect photography awards, these guys practiced inspired acts of problem solving every day, and shrugged it off as if it was simply their job.
T.A....great words, well said. My Dad was a textile chemist who accrued over 270 patents during his work years in this country. Before being forced to retire from Monsanto at the age of 65 his work brought them untold revenue for which he was sent a $5 bonus when the patents were filed.
Right, $5...
Thanks for the beautiful call out to unheralded heroes (and for the lovely, lovely image)
Well thank you both for sharing your reactions. Great story Max, though I'm assuming your Dad was well taken care of by Monsanto in the big picture. Working for the company was king. Now, we are all artists, we all want our patent, our play, our book deal. There was a time ( I think ) where workers were proud of their companies, and vice versa.
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