ENIAC's Mathematicians
The ENIAC women
The Mathematicians Betty Jean Jennings Bartik, Kathleen McNulty Mauchly Antonelli, Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum, Frances Bilas Spence, Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer and Betty Snyder Holberton were contracted by the United States government to think and write the ballistic trajectory calculation programs to be performed by ENIAC. That is, the men built the hardware and they built the software.
The Mathematicians Betty Jean Jennings Bartik, Kathleen McNulty Mauchly Antonelli, Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum, Frances Bilas Spence, Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer and Betty Snyder Holberton were contracted by the United States government to think and write the ballistic trajectory calculation programs to be performed by ENIAC. That is, the men built the hardware and they built the software.
They enter in the room, where the ENIAC was, and proceed to the programming itself. That is, to connect and disconnect the cables that reached the 6000 pins.
They enter in the room, where the ENIAC was, and proceed to the programming itself. That is, to connect and disconnect the cables that reached the 6000 pins.
Without them, computers and smartphones would not be as we know them today.
They not only had to program in the language of ones and zeros (binary system) without any help or programming manuals, more than the documentation of the wiring of the machine made by the men, besides they were denied entry to the ENIAC room (By military security) until the moment that they had everything prepared for the physical programming.
They not only had to program in the language of ones and zeros (binary system) without any help or programming manuals, more than the documentation of the wiring of the machine made by the men, besides they were denied entry to the ENIAC room (By military security) until the moment that they had everything prepared for the physical programming.
The Army never introduced the ENIAC women.
The Army never introduced the ENIAC women.
When in 1946 the Navy made public the existence of the ENIAC, in an event that showed the immense power of calculation of the machine and where the software made by the women worked perfectly, they were not named.
When in 1946 the Navy made public the existence of the ENIAC, in an event that showed the immense power of calculation of the machine and where the software made by the women worked perfectly, they were not named.
No one gave them any credit or discussed their critical part in the event that day. Their faces, but not their names, became part of the beautiful press pictures of the ENIAC. For forty years, their roles and their pioneering work were forgotten and their story lost to history.