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2009 查尔斯·萨克尔

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Charles P. Thacker
BIRTH:
February 26, 1943, Pasadena, California, USA

DEATH:
June 12, 2017, Palo Alto, California, United States

EDUCATION:
B.S., physics (University of California, Berkeley, 1967).

EXPERIENCE:
University of California, Berkeley, Genie project (1967-1969); Berkeley Computer Corporation (1969 – 1970); Palo Alto Research Center—PARC (1970-1983); Digital Equipment Corporation, Systems Research Center (1983-1997); Microsoft Research Laboratory, Cambridge, England (1997-1999); Microsoft Tablet computer project (1999-2005); Microsoft Research, Silicon Valley (from 2005), currently Technical Fellow at Microsoft.

HONORS AND AWARDS:
ACM’s Software Systems Award (1984, with B. Lampson and R. Taylor); Fellow of the ACM (1994); Distinguished Alumnus in Computer Science at University of California, Berkeley (1996);Charles Stark Draper Prize (2004, together with Alan C. Kay, Butler W. Lampson, and Robert W. Taylor); IEEE John von Neumann Medal (2007); Fellow of the Computer History Museum (2007); member of the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
He holds an honorary doctorate from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zurich.


CHARLES P. (CHUCK) THACKER DL Author Profile link
United States – 2009
CITATION
For the pioneering design and realization of the first modern personal computer -- the Alto at Xerox PARC -- and seminal inventions and contributions to local area networks (including the Ethernet), multiprocessor workstations, snooping cache coherence protocols, and tablet personal computers.

SHORT ANNOTATED
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ACM TURING AWARD
LECTURE
ACM TURING AWARD
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RESEARCH
SUBJECTS
ADDITIONAL
MATERIALS
Chuck Thacker has worked in industrial research labs for over forty years developing innovative computer systems, networks, and computing hardware. Although primarily a hardware architect, he has also written software for computer-aided design and user interfaces.

Chuck was born in Los Angeles, California in 1943.  Chuck knew quite early in life that he wanted a career in technology, as his father was an electrical engineer. He graduated from high school at the top of his class and entered the California Institute of Technology in 1960.  He decided that the San Francisco Bay area would be a better place to work and live, and transferred to the University of California at Berkeley. There, he met his wife Karen; they were married in 1964.

Chuck originally planned to be an experimental physicist. He had worked at the California Institute of Technology’s synchrotron laboratory, and was excited to work at the boundary of physics and engineering. He obtained a BS from the University of California, Berkeley in 1967, and then worked as an engineer for a small Berkeley company run by Jack Hawley, a local inventor. In late 1967, he heard about the UC Berkeley Genie project, and applied for a position. There he met future collaborators Butler Lampson, Peter Deutsch, Wayne Lichtenberger, and Mel Pirtle.

Although he had used computers before joining Genie, he had not yet been irreversibly infected by computing. His first machine was an IBM 1130 operated by the Berkeley Physics department. It was available to students at night, and had a compile-and-run Fortran system that eliminated the need for the operators that were common in most data centers of the time.

At Genie, he learned about interactive computing, and was thoroughly smitten. He abandoned physics. The Genie project had built one of the first timesharing systems based on a Scientific Data Systems SDS-930 that they modified to support paging and have drum and disk storage subsystems, creating what later became the SDS-940. Chuck arrived when the system was essentially complete, but he did implement some incremental expansions. His primary task was to begin planning the successor system, which was a much more ambitious project. Although the Berkeley EECS department has claimed him as one of their more successful alumni, and even provided him with Harry Huskey as a graduate advisor, this is an urban legend—he was a non-academic employee.

Although it was fairly common at the time for research groups to build and operate their own computers, funding for such large projects was difficult to obtain, and a significant fraction was claimed by the university for “overhead.” As a result, some of the Genie scientists and engineers decided to start a company that was independent of the university. The Berkeley Computer Corporation (BCC), with Pirtle as its president, was founded in 1969.

The BCC 500 timesharing system was one of the best examples of the “second system effect” in computing. Having succeeded brilliantly with the SDS 940, the group now set a much more ambitious goal: to construct a system capable of supporting up to 500 remote users. Chuck once asked Mel Pirtle what people would do with it. Pirtle replied presciently, “They’ll probably play games.”

The BCC 500 used several independent microprogrammed processors. Two were used to run user programs, one was for job scheduling, one for managing drum and disk I/O, and one for handling remote terminals. The system’s console computer was an IBM 360/30, which was chosen because of its highly reliable tape drives, line printer, and card equipment. Although the BCC 500 used magnetic core for main memory, it also had a small “fast memory”, which today we would call a cache. The computer occupied two floors of a refurbished fur storage vault in the industrial section of Berkeley. The location was deliberately kept secret, since this was a time of student demonstrations, many directed at computing installations.

At BCC, Chuck was responsible for the design of the microprogrammed processor. He also designed the equipment for supporting remote users by concentrating their traffic over the fastest available data connection available at the time, 2400 bits per second.

Two years and four million dollars later, the BCC 500 system worked successfully. But the 1970 recession made the needed second round of venture funding impossible to get. The company had to close its doors. The one system they had built was sold to the University of Hawaii, where it served as the departmental computing facility for several years.

Fortunately for the BCC group, Xerox had just decided to start the multi-disciplinary Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). It included a General Science Laboratory (GSL), primarily employing physicists and materials scientists; a System Sciences Lab (SSL), primarily charted to explore systems based on computers; and a Computer Science Lab (CSL), chartered to explore computers themselves. To head CSL, Xerox hired Bob Taylor, who had directed the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) at the Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, now DARPA). Taylor, who knew most of the people involved in academic computing projects at the time, chose a core group from BCC as his first employees: Chuck, Butler Lampson, Peter Deutsch, Jim Mitchell, and Charles Simonyi.

The first task for the new laboratory was to acquire the necessary computing capability to support its research. At the time, a DEC PDP-10 running the BBN Tenex operating system was the de facto standard in most academic groups. But having just purchased Scientific Data Systems, Xerox management was reluctant to purchase a competitor’s machine, so the group decided to build its own PDP-10. The Multiple Access Computer System (MAXC—an acronym carefully selected as a pun on the name of SDS President Max Palevsky) was designed much more conservatively than the BCC 500. The most innovative part was the memory system, which used the new Intel 1103 dynamic RAM chip. Chuck designed the memory system and much of the I/O for the machine. Butler Lampson designed the microprocessor. Eventually, three copies of MAXC were built, and it served as the lab’s primary computer for several years. It was one of the first ARPAnet hosts, using an interface to the network’s Interface Message Processor designed by Bob Metcalfe and Dave Boggs. MAXC was more reliable than a DEC PDP-10, primarily because the DEC designers built an asynchronous machine without fully understanding the implications of metastable states in digital synchronizers.

With MAXC complete and the laboratory growing, the group looked for new challenges. Although non-technical, Taylor explained to the group that timesharing was only a step on the road to true personal computing, and that computers could serve as communication, as well as computing devices. A Xerox theme was to produce the “paperless office”, and they tried to see how this might be accomplished. SSL, the sister lab to CSL, had experimented with an office system that included high resolution raster displays based on complex character generation technology, but CSL used a different approach: the bitmapped display.

Chuck understood the validity of Moore’s law, and realized that the semiconductor memory used in MAXC would quickly get larger, faster, and cheaper. It would therefore be possible to build a new type of display where each pixel on the screen was represented by a single bit of memory. The result was the 1973 Alto, the first computer system that we would recognize today as a personal computer. The Alto hardware was designed by Chuck and Ed McCreight, who designed the disk subsystem for the machine’s 2.5 Mbit disk.

In order to become pervasive, Alto needed to be inexpensive. To achieve this, Chuck decided to turn the usual assumptions of minicomputer design around. Rather than multiplexing the memory between the CPU and I/O controllers, the machine would multiplex the processor among independent microcoded tasks. This allowed the hardware complexity of I/O controllers to be replaced by task-specific microcode. The highest priority task for the 6 MHz processor was to load a single scan line of display pixels; the lowest was the emulator for the instruction set running user programs. Alto may have been the first simultaneously-multithreaded (SMT) computer.

The Alto was a hit within Xerox. It provided the hardware on which a number of innovative systems were built. Butler Lampson was responsible for the design of much of the early Alto software, including the operating system and (with Charles Simonyi) the Bravo text editor, which eventually became Microsoft Word. Programs that exploited the Alto’s bitmap display included graphic editors specialized for splines, and Chuck’s SIL (“simple illustrator”) computer-aided design program, which became the standard tool for schematic drawing. Alan Kay’s Smalltalk system was one of the first Alto applications, and its microcode included Dan Ingalls’ bitBlt primitive for character rendering that is still used in graphics today.

Alto was designed so that it was easy to add new I/O devices with a small amount of hardware and microcode. One of the first extensions was the Ethernet local area network invented by Bob Metcalfe, with some help from Chuck on the properties of transmission lines. Ethernet allowed Altos to be connected into a distributed system, and much of the early distributed systems work, including the Grapevine email system developed by Andrew Birrell and others, were first run on Alto. For Alan Kay, Chuck designed an organ with a 3-manual keyboard, pedals, and a microcoded wave-table synthesizer driving a 12 KHz ADC.

Although the Alto was not a commercial success, it was the motivation for what became a spectacular success for Xerox: laser printing. Gary Starkweather of GSL, who intimately understood optics and xerography, built the first laser printer, called EARS (Ethernet Alto Research Character Generator and Scanning Laser Output Terminal), based on a character generator designed by Butler Lampson. EARS provided printing for most of PARC until it was replaced by the much more cost effective Dover Printer designed by Bob Sproull, Butler Lampson, and others.

Chuck went on to design several successors to the Alto. He started a project to build a computer based on emitter-coupled logic (ECL), which was completed as the “Dorado” by a large team consisting of Severo Ornstein, Gene McDaniel, Lampson, McCreight, and others. Meanwhile Chuck had joined Dave Liddle’s System Development group, which needed an inexpensive computer to control a laser printer. Although they had initially planned to use the Dorado, it proved to be too expensive, so they instead used the lower-cost Dolphin designed by Chuck and Brian Rosen. Chuck returned to PARC, where Dolphin had limited application because Dorado was much faster. Its primary virtue was that it had a color display, which was used to build a computer-aided design (CAD) system to support the Mead-Conway LSI design methodology popular at the time.

By 1980 it was clear that LSI was the best technology to build personal computers, and Chuck started the Dragon project to do that. Dragon was a multiprocessor that employed one of the first cache-coherence protocols. Although never completed, it influenced later systems.

In 1983, Taylor was fired, and much of the core CSL team followed him to the newly-created Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) Systems Research Center. As at PARC, the first project was to provide the computing infrastructure for the laboratory. This took the form of the Firefly, the first multiprocessor workstation with coherent caches. Firefly was designed by Chuck and Larry Stewart, and served, as did the earlier Alto, as the basis for several projects in the area of distributed systems.

Chuck also led the development of the AN1 and AN2 networks. AN1 was a packet-switching network that employed 10 Mb/s point-to-point links at a time when 1 Mbit/s Ethernet was the fastest commercially available LAN technology. AN2, started in the late ‘80s was an attempt to use 622 Mb/s ATM technology as a LAN. Although it was commercialized as the DEC GigaNet ATM product, it was not very successful, since 100 Mb Ethernet switches were becoming available at much lower cost.

In the early 1990s Chuck was approached by Bob Supnik, who was leading the effort to develop the DEC Alpha system. Supnik needed a computer to exercise the early Alpha chips, and it was clear that the normal DEC engineering approach could not meet the required schedule. Chuck, Larry Stewart, and Dave Conroy designed and built the Alpha Demonstration Unit, an ECL multiprocessor that was used for Alpha software development until the production systems were ready. The ADU was credited with saving a year in getting Alpha to the market.

By 1997 DEC was in decline, and Chuck decided on a change. His children were now grown, so he and his wife Karen considered taking a year’s sabbatical in Europe. That plan was cut short when he received a call from Nathan Myhrvold, the CTO of Microsoft. Chuck had been approached by Microsoft earlier, but had declined due to the company’s software-centric approach to computing. Microsoft now wanted someone with industrial research experience to take a two-year assignment helping Roger Needham set up a research laboratory in Cambridge. Roger had been a frequent visitor to PARC and SRC, and the opportunity seemed perfect. Chuck joined Microsoft and moved to the UK.

The Cambridge Lab was Microsoft’s first attempt to establish a non-US lab, and it was quite successful. Chuck’s work mainly involved hiring talent and growing the lab, although he did do some work on electronic books.

When he returned to the US in 1999 he decided not to rejoin Microsoft Research, but instead to work with the group within the company developing the Microsoft Tablet PC. At that time it was difficult to convince hardware partners that tablets were a viable class of computers, so they decided to construct a prototype to demonstrate the capabilities of the new form factor. Chuck designed the prototype hardware, using Silicon Valley subcontractors for much of the engineering. This effort resulted in the launch of the Tablet PC in 2001. Butler Lampson, who had joined Microsoft in 1995, worked on the tablet software.

Chuck rejoined Microsoft Research (MSR) in 2005, shortly after the founding of Microsoft Research Silicon Valley, to work in computer architecture and networking. In 2005, he led the effort to build the BEE3, a hardware platform for architectural experimentation. Based on field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), BEE3 was designed in cooperation with the RAMP Consortium (“Research Accelerator for Multiple Processors”) led by Dave Patterson of the University of California in Berkeley, along with participants from MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Texas in Austin, Stanford University, and University of Washington. BEE3 provides a relatively low-cost platform for experimenting with new architectural features. It resulted in the formation of a startup (BeeCube) that manages the distribution and support of the system. BeeCube has also produced a follow-on line of systems using more modern FPGAs.

In 2010, Chuck designed the Beehive, a simple multiprocessor system runing on a Xilinx development board that is much less expensive than BEE3. Beehive and its software tool chain, developed by Andrew Birrell and Tom Rodeheffer, have been used in a number of universities as the basis for lab courses in computer architecture. Its design is simple enough to be easily understood and modified by students, and can lead to a deeper understanding into how computers actually work.

Chuck’s latest project is AN3, whose goal is to improve networking in large data centers. Currently, Ethernet and TCP/IP are used in these networks, but TCP/IP is an old standard designed to solve problems that no longer exist in today’s data centers. AN3 takes a clean-slate approach to the problem to provide simple, reliable, and low cost networking.





Charles P. Thacker
出生地:美国加州帕萨迪纳
1943年2月26日,美国加利福尼亚州帕萨迪纳市

逝世
2017年6月12日,美国加利福尼亚州帕洛阿尔托市

学历。
物理学学士(加利福尼亚大学伯克利分校,1967年)。

经历:加州大学伯克利分校,1967年。
加州大学伯克利分校,精灵项目(1967-1969);伯克利计算机公司(1969-1970);帕洛阿尔托研究中心-PARC(1970-1983);数字设备公司,系统研究中心(1983-1997);微软研究实验室,英国剑桥(1997-1999);微软平板电脑项目(1999-2005);微软硅谷研究院(从2005年开始),目前是微软技术研究员。

获得的荣誉和奖项。
ACM软件系统奖(1984年,与B. Lampson和R. Taylor共同获得);ACM会员(1994年);加州大学伯克利分校计算机科学杰出校友(1996年);Charles Stark Draper奖(2004年,与Alan C. Kay、Butler W. Lampson和Robert W. Taylor共同获得);IEEE John von Neumann奖章(2007年);计算机历史博物馆会员(2007年);国家工程院和美国艺术与科学学院会员。
他拥有瑞士联邦理工学院苏黎世分校的名誉博士学位。


查尔斯-P-(查克)-塔克(CHARLES P. (CHUCK) THACKER) DL作者简介链接
美国 - 2009年
嘉奖
因其开创性地设计和实现了第一台现代个人电脑--施乐PARC的Alto,以及对局域网(包括以太网)、多处理器工作站、窥探式缓存一致性协议和平板电脑的开创性发明和贡献。

简短注释
书目
亚马逊图灵奖
讲座
亚马逊图灵奖
讲座视频
研究
课题
额外的
材料
Chuck Thacker在工业研究实验室工作了四十多年,开发了创新的计算机系统、网络和计算硬件。尽管他主要是一个硬件建筑师,但他也为计算机辅助设计和用户界面编写软件。

查克于1943年出生于加利福尼亚州的洛杉矶。 查克很早就知道他想从事技术工作,因为他的父亲是一名电气工程师。他以全班第一名的成绩从高中毕业,并于1960年进入加州理工学院。 他决定旧金山湾区将是一个更好的工作和生活的地方,并转到加州大学伯克利分校。在那里,他遇到了他的妻子凯伦;他们于1964年结婚。

查克最初计划成为一名实验物理学家。他曾在加州理工学院的同步辐射实验室工作,并对在物理学和工程学的边界工作感到兴奋。他于1967年获得了加州大学伯克利分校的学士学位,然后在当地发明家杰克-霍利经营的一家小型伯克利公司担任工程师。1967年底,他听说了加州大学伯克利分校的精灵项目,并申请了一个职位。在那里他遇到了未来的合作者巴特勒-兰普森、彼得-多伊奇、韦恩-利希滕伯格和梅尔-皮特尔。

尽管他在加入Genie之前已经使用过计算机,但他还没有被计算机不可逆转地感染。他的第一台机器是由伯克利物理系操作的IBM 1130。它在晚上供学生使用,有一个编译和运行的Fortran系统,不需要当时大多数数据中心常见的运算器。

在Genie,他了解了交互式计算,并被彻底迷住了。他放弃了物理学。Genie项目在科学数据系统公司的SDS-930基础上建立了第一批分时系统之一,他们对该系统进行了修改,以支持分页并拥有鼓和磁盘存储子系统,创造了后来的SDS-940。查克是在系统基本完成时到达的,但他确实实施了一些增量扩展。他的主要任务是开始规划后续的系统,这是一个更加雄心勃勃的项目。虽然伯克利大学EECS系声称他是他们比较成功的校友之一,甚至为他提供了Harry Huskey作为研究生导师,但这是一个城市传说,他是一个非学术雇员。

虽然在当时,研究小组建立和运行自己的计算机是相当普遍的,但这种大型项目的资金很难获得,而且有相当一部分被大学要求作为 "管理费"。因此,Genie的一些科学家和工程师决定成立一个独立于大学的公司。伯克利计算机公司(BCC)成立于1969年,由皮尔特尔担任总裁。

BCC 500分时系统是计算机领域 "第二系统效应 "的最佳范例之一。在SDS 940上取得了辉煌的成功之后,该小组现在设定了一个更加雄心勃勃的目标:建造一个能够支持多达500个远程用户的系统。查克曾经问过梅尔-皮特尔,人们会用它做什么。皮尔特尔有预见性地回答说:"他们可能会玩游戏"。

BCC 500使用几个独立的微程序处理器。两个用于运行用户程序,一个用于工作调度,一个用于管理鼓和磁盘I/O,还有一个用于处理远程终端。该系统的控制台计算机是IBM 360/30,之所以选择它是因为它有高度可靠的磁带机、行式打印机和卡片设备。尽管BCC 500使用磁芯作为主存储器,但它也有一个小型的 "快速存储器",也就是我们今天所说的高速缓存。这台计算机占据了伯克利工业区的一个翻新的毛皮存储库的两层。这个地点被刻意保密,因为这是一个学生示威的时代,许多示威是针对计算机装置的。

在BCC,查克负责微程序处理器的设计。他还设计了支持远程用户的设备,将他们的流量集中在当时可用的最快的数据连接上,即每秒2400比特。

两年时间和四百万美元之后,BCC 500系统成功运行。但1970年的经济衰退使得所需的第二轮风险资金无法获得。该公司不得不关门大吉。他们建立的一个系统被卖给了夏威夷大学,在那里作为部门的计算设施使用了几年。

对BCC小组来说,幸运的是,施乐公司刚刚决定成立多学科的帕洛阿尔托研究中心(PARC)。它包括一个普通科学实验室(GSL),主要雇用物理学家和材料科学家;一个系统科学实验室(SSL),主要负责探索基于计算机的系统;以及一个计算机科学实验室(CSL),负责探索计算机本身。施乐公司聘请了鲍勃-泰勒来领导CSL,他曾在国防部高级研究计划局(ARPA,现在的DARPA)指导信息处理技术办公室(IPTO)。泰勒认识当时参与学术计算项目的大多数人,他从BCC选择了一个核心小组作为他的第一批雇员。查克、巴特勒-兰普森、彼得-多伊、吉姆-米切尔和查尔斯-西蒙尼。

新实验室的首要任务是获得必要的计算能力以支持其研究。当时,运行BBN Tenex操作系统的DEC PDP-10是大多数学术团体的事实上的标准。但由于刚刚收购了科学数据系统公司,施乐公司的管理层不愿意购买竞争对手的机器,因此该小组决定建立自己的PDP-10。多重访问计算机系统(MAXC--一个精心挑选的缩写,是对SDS主席Max Palevsky名字的双关语)的设计比BCC 500要保守得多。最创新的部分是内存系统,它使用了新的英特尔1103动态RAM芯片。查克设计了内存系统和该机器的大部分I/O。巴特勒-兰普森设计了微处理器。最终,MAXC被建造了三份副本,它作为实验室的主要计算机使用了几年。它是最早的ARPA网络主机之一,使用由Bob Metcalfe和Dave Boggs设计的网络接口信息处理器的接口。MAXC比DEC的PDP-10更可靠,主要是因为DEC的设计者在没有完全理解数字同步器中的变异状态的影响的情况下,建造了一个异步机器。

随着MAXC的完成和实验室的发展,该小组开始寻找新的挑战。虽然不是技术性的,但泰勒向该小组解释说,分时器只是通向真正的个人计算的一个步骤,计算机可以作为通信和计算设备使用。施乐公司的一个主题是生产 "无纸化办公",他们试图了解如何实现这一目标。SSL是CSL的姐妹实验室,曾试验过一个办公系统,其中包括基于复杂字符生成技术的高分辨率光栅显示器,但CSL使用了一种不同的方法:位图显示器。

查克理解摩尔定律的有效性,并意识到MAXC中使用的半导体存储器将很快变得更大、更快、更便宜。因此,有可能建立一种新型的显示器,屏幕上的每个像素都由一个比特的存储器来表示。其结果是1973年的Alto,这是第一个我们今天认为是个人电脑的计算机系统。Alto的硬件是由Chuck和Ed McCreight设计的,他们为该机器的2.5兆比特磁盘设计了磁盘子系统。

为了普及,Alto需要价格低廉。为了实现这一目标,查克决定扭转微型计算机设计的通常假设。该机器不是在CPU和I/O控制器之间复用内存,而是在独立的微编码任务之间复用处理器。这使得I/O控制器的硬件复杂性被特定任务的微代码所取代。6兆赫处理器的最高优先级任务是加载显示像素的单一扫描线;最低的是运行用户程序的指令集的模拟器。Alto可能是第一台同时多线程(SMT)的计算机。

Alto在施乐公司内部很受欢迎。它提供了一些创新系统所需的硬件。巴特勒-兰普森负责设计了许多早期的奥拓软件,包括操作系统和(与查尔斯-西蒙尼合作)Bravo文本编辑器,它最终成为微软Word。利用Alto的位图显示的程序包括专门用于花键的图形编辑器,以及查克的SIL("简单插图")计算机辅助设计程序,该程序成为原理图的标准工具。Alan Kay的Smalltalk系统是Alto最早的应用之一,它的微码包括Dan Ingalls用于字符渲染的bitBlt基元,该基元至今仍在图形中使用。

Alto的设计使它很容易用少量的硬件和微码增加新的I/O设备。最早的扩展之一是由Bob Metcalfe发明的以太网局域网,Chuck在传输线的特性方面给予了一些帮助。以太网允许Altos连接成一个分布式系统,许多早期的分布式系统工作,包括Andrew Birrell等人开发的Grapevine电子邮件系统,都是首先在Alto上运行。查克为艾伦-凯设计了一个带有3个手动键盘、踏板和一个驱动12KHz ADC的微编码波表合成器的风琴。

虽然Alto没有取得商业上的成功,但它是施乐公司后来取得巨大成功的动力:激光打印。GSL的加里-斯塔克韦瑟非常了解光学和光刻技术,他在巴特勒-兰普森设计的字符发生器的基础上制造了第一台激光打印机,称为EARS(以太网阿尔托研究字符发生器和扫描激光输出终端)。EARS为PARC的大部分成员提供打印服务,直到它被Bob Sproull、Butler Lampson等人设计的更具成本效益的Dover打印机所取代。

查克继续设计了几款Alto的后续产品。他开始了一个建立基于发射器耦合逻辑(ECL)的计算机的项目,该项目由Severo Ornstein, Gene McDaniel, Lampson, McCreight和其他人组成的一个大型团队完成,名为 "Dorado"。与此同时,查克加入了戴夫-利德尔的系统开发小组,该小组需要一台廉价的计算机来控制一台激光打印机。虽然他们最初计划使用 "多拉多",但事实证明它太贵了,所以他们改用由查克和布莱恩-罗森设计的低成本的 "海豚"。查克回到PARC,由于多拉多的速度更快,海豚在那里的应用有限。它的主要优点是它有一个彩色显示屏,用于建立一个计算机辅助设计(CAD)系统,以支持当时流行的米德-康威LSI设计方法。

到1980年,LSI显然是制造个人电脑的最佳技术,查克为此启动了 "龙 "项目。Dragon是一个多处理器,采用了最早的高速缓存一致性协议之一。虽然没有完成,但它影响了后来的系统。

1983年,泰勒被解雇,CSL核心团队的大部分成员跟随他来到新成立的数字设备公司(DEC)系统研究中心。如同在PARC,第一个项目是为实验室提供计算基础设施。这就是萤火虫,第一台带有相干缓存的多处理器工作站的形式。萤火虫是由查克和拉里-斯图尔特设计的,和早期的阿尔托一样,是分布式系统领域几个项目的基础。

查克还领导了AN1和AN2网络的开发。AN1是一个分组交换网络,采用10Mb/s的点对点链接,当时1Mbit/s的以太网是最快的商用LAN技术。AN2,开始于80年代末,试图使用622Mb/s的ATM技术作为局域网。尽管它作为DEC GigaNet ATM产品被商业化,但它并不十分成功,因为100Mb的以太网交换机正在以更低的成本出现。

在20世纪90年代初,Bob Supnik找到了Chuck,他正在领导开发DEC Alpha系统的工作。苏普尼克需要一台计算机来锻炼早期的阿尔法芯片,很明显,正常的DEC工程方法无法满足所需的时间表。查克、拉里-斯图尔特和戴夫-康罗伊设计并建造了阿尔法演示单元,这是一个ECL多处理器,在生产系统准备好之前用于阿尔法软件开发。ADU被认为在将Alpha推向市场方面节省了一年的时间。

到1997年,DEC公司正在衰落,查克决定改变现状。他的孩子现在已经长大了,所以他和妻子凯伦考虑在欧洲休养一年。当他接到微软首席技术官内森-迈尔沃德(Nathan Myhrvold)的电话时,这个计划被缩短了。微软早些时候曾接触过查克,但由于该公司以软件为中心的计算方法而拒绝了。微软现在希望有一个有工业研究经验的人接受两年的任务,帮助罗杰-尼德姆在剑桥建立一个研究实验室。罗杰一直是PARC和SRC的常客,这个机会似乎很完美。查克加入了微软并搬到了英国。

剑桥实验室是微软建立一个非美国实验室的第一次尝试,而且相当成功。查克的工作主要是招聘人才和发展实验室,尽管他也做了一些电子书的工作。

当他在1999年回到美国时,他决定不重新加入微软研究院,而是在公司内部开发微软平板电脑的小组工作。当时,很难说服硬件合作伙伴相信平板电脑是一种可行的计算机类别,所以他们决定建造一个原型,以展示新形式因素的能力。查克设计了原型硬件,利用硅谷的分包商完成了大部分工程。这一努力导致了2001年平板电脑的推出。1995年加入微软的巴特勒-兰普森负责平板电脑的软件工作。

查克于2005年重新加入微软研究院(MSR),在微软硅谷研究院成立后不久,从事计算机架构和网络工作。2005年,他领导了建立BEE3的工作,这是一个用于架构实验的硬件平台。基于现场可编程门阵列(FPGA),BEE3是与加州大学伯克利分校的戴夫-帕特森领导的RAMP联盟("多处理器研究加速器")合作设计的,参与者包括麻省理工学院、卡耐基梅隆大学、奥斯汀的德克萨斯大学、斯坦福大学和华盛顿大学。BEE3提供了一个相对低成本的平台来实验新的架构功能。它导致了一家初创公司(BeeCube)的成立,该公司负责管理该系统的分发和支持。BeeCube还生产了一个使用更现代的FPGA的后续系统系列。

2010年,Chuck设计了Beehive,这是一个简单的多处理器系统,运行在Xilinx开发板上,价格比BEE3低很多。Beehive及其软件工具链由Andrew Birrell和Tom Rodeheffer开发,已被一些大学用作计算机结构实验课程的基础。它的设计很简单,学生很容易理解和修改,而且可以使学生更深入地了解计算机的实际工作原理。

查克的最新项目是AN3,其目标是改善大型数据中心的网络。目前,这些网络中使用的是以太网和TCP/IP,但TCP/IP是一个旧的标准,旨在解决今天的数据中心中不再存在的问题。AN3采取了一种干净的方法来解决这个问题,以提供简单、可靠和低成本的网络。
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