Pioneer in computer design and realization of the Alto, one of the first modern personal computers, Thacker received his B.S. in physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1967 and then joined the university's "Project Genie" in 1968, which led to a very successful early timesharing system. 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 (PARC).
Thacker worked in the 1970s and 1980s at 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.
