A Microsoft researcher, Charles Thacker has been awarded this year's Turing Award by the Association of Computing Machinery.

The award has been termed as the Nobel Prize of the technology sector, and Thacker has been honored with the same for his breakthrough work carried out at Xerox’s PARC division, where he lent a major hand in the development and designing of both the first GUI computer and Ethernet.

"ACM has named Charles P. Thacker the recipient of the award for his pioneering design and realization of the Alto, the first modern personal computer, and the prototype for networked personal computers", the organization confirmed.

"Alto incorporated bitmap (TV-like) displays, which enable modern graphical user interfaces (GUIs), including What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editors. Thacker's design, which he built while at Xerox PARC, reflected a new vision of a self-sufficient, networked computer on every desk, equipped with innovations that are standard in today's models", it was added.

Pleasantly surprised, the winner said, "I never expected to win this one. There are several other nice awards that I’ve won that I thought were within the realm of possibility, but this one I never even thought was possible".