[4] His father was Ralph Scott Thacker, born 1906, an electrical engineer (Caltech class of 1928[5]) in the aeronautical industry.

While BCC was not commercially successful, this group became the core technologists in the Computer Systems Laboratory at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).

After returning to the United States, Thacker designed the hardware for Microsoft's Tablet PC, based on his experience with the "interim Dynabook" at PARC, and later the Lectrice, a pen-based hand-held computer at DEC SRC.

Because the impetus for the RISC-V development was the paucity of open-source processor designs for the RAMP project (both Asanovic and Patterson were PIs), it is fitting that Thacker played a role in this important future technology.

Thacker received an honorary doctorate from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology[12] and was a Technical Fellow at Microsoft.