Girl-geeks: our foremothers
October 30th 2007 -
Six young women mastered the power of the ENIAC – an 80 foot long, 8 foot tall, black metal machine – and harnessed its power through an archaic programming interface using dozens of wires and 3000 switches. They programmed ENIAC to perform a ballistics trajectory, a differential calculus equation important to the WWII effort, and they succeeded brilliantly. When the ENIAC was unveiled to the public on February 14, 1946, their program captured the imagination of the press and made headlines across the country. Afterwards, the ENIAC became a legendary machine and its engineers (all men) became famous. Never introduced or credited at the ENIAC events of the 1940s, the Programmers story disappeared from history. They became invisible.
Read more here: ENIAC Programmers Project via boingboing