For all new inventions in computer science, women have been at the forefront – examples of it are posting on the internet, programming, information science as well as online communities. Nevertheless, there are still sexist labels; a lot of humans believe that computer science is a field for men.
Why is that the case? As a matter of fact, a lot of women’s accomplishments have been deleted from the account of computing technology. Also, they have literally been completely overlooked.
This is the importance of these chapters. They rewrite this forgotten account and give sight to the journeys of these women that have been ignored. Additionally, you will learn that some of these women turned inventors in the field by doing jobs that were seen as extremely boring to be done by men; other women studied how to use and work on computers on their own with no guides. The majority of the women had to build professional careers in computer science that was not in existence at that point – the roads we now follow, this is all thanks to those women.
In the following chapters, you’ll learn
- the relationship between Lord Bryon and computer programming
- the meaning of “kilogirl”; as well as
- also about how a person that dropped out of school got a computer worth $150,000 for a project of the community.
Chapter 1 – The first ever computer programmer in the universe was Ada Lovelace.
Nearly 200 years ago when Lord Bryon, the popular English poet died, he didn’t only leave to the universe his nice poetry– Ada Lovelace, his daughter was also left by him.
Bryon had a very short marriage with Anna Isabella Milbanke. a mathematics-loving aristocrat and both of them had just one child, Ada. Milbanke wanted to ensure that Ada didn’t take any trait of Bryon’s recklessness; therefore, she organized a detailed math education for her daughter from when she was only four years of age. Nowadays, when we think of Ada, we do not just remember her for her popular parents; however as a pioneer in an industry that has to do with almost every part of our current lives; that is, computer programming.
Ada did well in her education at a very tender age. She instantly surpassed her teachers, however, she went further to educate herself with books as well as correspondence, by even becoming friends with top scientists of the present day. When Lovelace was 17 years of age, she came across Charles Babbage who is the author of the difference engine – which was a calculator that was used in the olden days for difficult mathematical calculations. This device captivated Ada and she was ardent to learn more from Babbage.
Ada got married at an early age and that was the regular thing amongst the noblewoman during her time. William King who was Ada’s husband will later on turn into the first Earl of Lovelace. Kids, being married as well as social duties of a noblewoman were time taking. However, Lovelace’s enthusiasm for the work of Babbage still remains.
Not too long after, Babbage made another device known as the analytical engine which did some general-work computation. At the time when Lovelace found an article on the analytical engine in a Swiss journal, she took the step of transcribing it into English. While she did that, she made corrections to a few mistakes that were done by the writer. This amazed Baggage and he had to motivate her to write her own papers together with the transcription.
When Lovelace had finished her work and published it, her work was three times more – and way more sophisticated – than the initial paper. It completely talked about Babbage’s inspiration for the analytical engine and how this could be made use of in mathematics. Additionally, Ada’s papers highlighted her creative skill to deliver a complex analysis in an interesting as well as fascinating manner.
While Ada was working on her paper, she got motivation from the motto of the Lovelace family: “Labor is its own reward.” When Ada passed on in the year 1852, this same motto was written on her casket. it was an unfortunately attached inscription on Ada’s coffin, as her accomplishments were just recognized a bit during the times of her life. It would be nearly 100 years before Ada was truly acknowledged.
Chapter 2 – One computer-science pioneer was Grace Hopper.
The entire globe except for the United States was experiencing war in the year 1941. On the 7th of December, this changed when Japan invaded Pearl Harbor and the United State called out for war against Japan.
A 36-year-old-mathematics named Grace Hopper who was a professor at Vassar College was keen on helping her nation. Therefore, she had to resign from her place of work to become part of the US Navy. Since she was a mathematician, she thought she would use her time in the military to crack the codes of their opponent. Rather, the US Navy made her go to Harvard for her to turn into the third programmer of the earth’s first-ever computer.
Hopper worked together with Lieutenant Howard Aiken during her time at Harvard. Aiken was the one that created the Mark I computer that did ballistics issues, This computer did not have any guide, however, that didn’t serve as a hindrance for Hopper from learning about it. Not surprisingly, she instantly became irreplaceable to Aiken.
While Hopper was studying at Harvard, she wrote code that fixed a few of the war’s very tasking issues. Not until the bombs affected Nagasaki and Hiroshiman, nevertheless, that Hopper figured out that few of the calculations she did add to the formation of the atomic bomb. At this point, she began to store parts she could use again of her programming code – which is the first action she took in what would turn out to be the most essential in her legacy.
At the end of the war, Hopper turned into a UNIVAC programmer which is the strongest computer in the universe. As they sold more computers, it became more and more difficult for the few set of programmers to meet the demands of their customers. Hopper convinced her seniors that the future would be to make available programming for those that are not professionals. Hopper instantly made a compiler when she was made the head of the new Automatic Programming Department. This compiler allowed computers to make their own programs.
This knowledge was discovered, and other firms began to create their own compilers as well. Hopper predicted the mayhem that would lead to nearly all computer markers making use of their personal compiler. Therefore, in the year 1959, she made use of her links in the Navy to plan a meeting that had all the computer producers in the nation in attendance. All of them accepted to form a general, easy programming language that every computer can make use of. Instantly, a common business-oriented language, also known as COBOL was birthed. This COBOL because the most commonly utilized programming language in the field just ten years later after it was launched.
Now, completely 60 years after, they still make use of COBOL — and Grace Hopper is well known and remembered as “Grandma COBOL” for her important part in its creation.
Chapter 3 -The ENIAC Six women learned how to program the first-ever electronic computer on their own.
The term “computer” exists before computers as we are aware of them now. At first, it meant someone that did difficult mathematical tasks with their hand. Women were majorly the individuals that did these computations – the first computers.
As a matter of fact, there were a lot of women that were performing as computers in the first part of the 20th century, and the word “kilogirl” became utilized. This dimension is described nearly as one thousand hours of computing work.
Female computers could hardly maintain the need for their labor during World War II. In order to make things faster, John Mauchly a physics professor as well as engineer J. Presper Eckert created the first ever electronic computer named the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, or ENIAC for short. Incredibly, six women called ENIAC Six programmed this computer.
The ENAIC Six consisted of the following women Elizabeth “Betty” Snyder, Kathleen “Kay” McNulty, Marlyn Wescoff, Ruth Lichterman, Betty Jean Jennings as well as Frances Bilas. All these women were the previous human computers who, during the early times of war, had used their time in solving ballistics calculations.
Since no guide was available for the ENIAC to use; therefore, the six women needed to learn on their own how to first make use of it before understanding how to program the computer. Working on the ENIAC needed both mental and physical, work: a lot of cables needed to be plugged again for each calculation.
The war had already finished prior to when the ENIAC could completely start working. But, in the year 1946, the device caught the vision of the public after the associates of the ENIAC Six arranged a well-put-together public presentation. Unfortunately, these women didn’t receive the recognition they earned for the difficult labor they had done.
Elizabeth “Betty” Snyder as well as Betty Jean Jennings, also referred to as the two Bettys, were the dignitaries of the ENIAC programming group. Both of them worked hand in hand, did well at noticing one another’s errors, and didn’t allow their egos to hinder the means of creating flawless code.
Both Bettys proceeded to have lasting as well as revolutionary professions in the commercial computer field after the war ended. As a matter of fact, Snyder was part of the inventors of COBOL, which was the combined computer programming language that was formed at the urging of Grace Hopper.
Chapter 4 – Women had an important part to play in creating communication networks for the good of the public.
In the year 1969, when the United State attacked Cambodia by bombing it, it initiated a range of fights as well as protests. A student graduate of computer science at UC Berkeley named Pam Hardt-English immediately got entangled with the riots. However, Hardt-English together with her other student activists had a broader thought: they had a plan of forming communication networks to link several parts of the different cultures.
During the summer of the year 1970, Hardt-English together with two of her colleagues in class left UC Berkeley. They relocated to San Francisco into Project One which is a big warehouse that housed a bunch of hippies. This is where the dream of Hardt-English as well as her previous schoolmates will turn into a reality.
Hardt-English together with her friends had the intention of bringing together local resources as well as details and then disseminating these via a decentralized system. Meaning, they were visualizing the internet.
Although, at first, a computer was required – the issue was, at that time, there was nothing like having a computer of your own. Even at that, Hardt-English stayed courageous. She combined a record of fifty-three firms as well as institutions that she believed might have a computer that is not working again and they might want to give it out. She eventually hit jackpot with TransAmerica Leasing Corporation while she was reaching out to the companies on her list one after the other.
The SDS-940 which is equivalent to the dimension of “10 refrigerators” was sent to Project One in April of the year 1972. However, Hardt-English’s task had just started. During the course of the following three years, she was able to get thousands of dollars through fundraising in order to maintain the computer, labeled “Resource One,” working.
Not too long after, it was obvious that the idea to link several counterculture networks together was not applicable. Nevertheless, Resource One was still utilized in a good way by different occupants of Project One. For instance, Mary Janowitz, Sherry Reson, as well as Mya Shone found out that, in the Bay Area, social service agencies there did not share the major database of the aids obtainable for individuals that are less privileged. Therefore, they agreed to use Resource One to form a social services referral directory database.
Because social workers were unable to have easy access to the database on their own, each month, all the people that volunteered shared printouts of the directory. At the end of the day, all the libraries in town and even the Department of Social Services – had a version of it.
The United Way Charity became in charge after Mya and Mary left. At the end of the day, the database landed at the San Francisco Public Library, where it stayed till the year 2009. One of the oldest attempts to use computing for the good of the public is the social services referral directory.
Chapter 5 – Elizabeth “Jake” Feinler was the person that was accountable for a significant predecessor to the internet.
ARPANET was used before the internet came about and it is an old online network- the US military paid for it and it was created in the year 1969. This ARPANET made the scientists at the universities in the United State exchange ideas and discuss them with one another.
The ARPANET had about 30 networks in the year 1972, and it was apparent that the rising connection required good organization. The Network Information Center, or NIC for short which is the main office for ARPANET matters – belongs to part of the Stanford Research Institute group. But, the computer engineers at that place were extremely preoccupied to do the job. Therefore, the job got into the hands of a chemist-turned-information scientist named Elizabeth “Jake” Feinler. In being in control of the NIC, Feinler’s task would be to keep the structure on the olden-day internet
The first job Feinler had to do at NIC was to make a resource manual for the ARPANET. This entailed noting down every detail on every site that the network host. Feinler moved from not having any idea about the ARPANET into its ultimate authority just only a few weeks after she joined NIC. This resource manual was easy to use since it was printed on paper and it was simple to know the people on ARPANET; you can refer to it as the first-ever internet browser.
Feinler’s duties increases as time went back – at the end of the day, it included every main organizational job for this network that was on the rise. Feinler was put in control of enlisting every new host on the website and she was also in charge of compiling all the most essential discussions that happened on the network. During that era, the NIC also did the work of Google. Host sites were not advertising what they have to offer; therefore, the people who were in search of details had to meet Feinler, because she was aware of where all the things were located on the ARPANET. At the end of the day, Feinler created a people-finder on the site as the demand for it increased.
As ARPANET grew, it was mandatory to have an organized structure for providing site names as well as addresses – this finding data is what we call “domain names” in this present day. Feinler recommended the invention of general classifications on the bases of where computers were found: that is; “.edu” for education, “.com” for commercial businesses, “.gov” for the government, and “.mil” for the military.
That is only part of Feinler’s invention that is still being made use of on the internet in this present day. At the end of the day, the NIC moved from just two people team into a project of eleven-million-dollar. Again, in the story of computing, we have witnessed a woman hold onto a position that seemed boring to men – however, that eventually demonstrated to be of great significance.
Chapter 6 – Echo which is one of the oldest social media platforms was made by a woman and showcased the first-ever influencer.
During the beginning of the 1980s, Stacy Horn was a graduate student when she became part of The WELL which was a community online and was centered in California. Horn liked the discussions she had with the computer-programming devoters, ex-hippies as well as journalists- however, she instantly got bored of it. Calling The WELL in California seemed to her like she was having a phone call that was made to a far distance; therefore, her phone bill charge was a lot. Also, she yearned for a community that possessed a more actual New York City vibe.
Therefore, in the year 1990, Horn formed her personal community and she named it the “East Coast Hang-Out,” or Echo for short.
From the beginning of Echo, Horn went through the extra mile to discover “Echoids,” which was the name she gave to the people using her forum. Each night, she would attend museums, art launchings as well as parties in search of lively individuals that are willing to become part of Echo. This usually signifies telling them to come to her place – and during that period, everybody didn’t have an idea of how to use a computer, therefore, she had to teach all of the new members of her community how to make use of the forum.
Just 10-15% of people using the internet were female during the 1980s. Therefore, Horn had to take an extra attempt to bring other women to her platform.
Horn wished for Echo to become an elongation of the actual universe; therefore, she formed both private as well as general areas. The former were common among Echoids, and not too long after, there were private spaces for men, women, people recovering from addiction, individuals under the age of 30, and so on.
Cultural history was made in the year 1994 with the help of Echoids. During the time the country glued to their TV while O.J Simpson’s Bronco pursuit was being covered, Echoids uploaded their instant responses on the platform in the actual moment. This was known as “simulcasting.” Nowadays, we refer to it as “live-tweeting.”
Additionally, Echo also predicted a different present-time social-media situation: the influencer. Marisa Bowe who was a teenager during the 1970s finetuned her online discussional abilities after seeing the use of the live chat of the terminal of her dad’s computer.
Bowe found out about Echo after she relocated to New York in the 1980s- and this turned into her desire. She used a lot of her time on the Echo platform that is actual friends were starting to get bothered about it. Even though Bowe was shy in real life, she was very sociable online on Echo and Horn selected her to form interactive conversations on the platform. She got extremely famous that she formed a devoted following among her co-Echoids users and she was respected as a mini superstar anytime they linked up for the meetings they had monthly
Chapter 7 – Dame Wendy Hall masterminded the area of hypertext and this led to the creation of the World Wide Web.
Tim Berners-Lee is popular for creating the World Wide Web. That implies Tim created the internet, correct?
Not too soon. The internet is a group of computers, on the other hand, the World Wide Web is a group of connected pages formed in a common language known as the Hypertext Markup Language, or HTML for short.
HTML is the lineage of revolutionary hypertext procedures that few women created during the 1980s. In the midst of these women was Dame Wendy Hall, who, during that time, was a lecturer in computer science at the University of Southampton in England.
In the year 1986, Wendy Hall’s fascination for computer science was awakened. The 900th anniversary of the Domesday Book was been celebrated by the BBC, which is an eleventh-century poll in England. Nowadays, the BBC might celebrate the Domesday Book anniversary by showing a present image of life on a stunning, engaging website. But, the World Wide Web wasn’t in existence at that era, therefore, the showcasing was done on two laser discs. Wendy Hall was mesmerized by how the information was presented and fascinated by the chances of communal media.
Wendy’s enthusiasm in this area increased greatly in the year 1989 during a leave at the University of Michigan, when she found out that multimedia that is clickable was a very famous field. This was referred to as “hypertext” or “hypermedia” by the Americans. She went back to Southampton full of different concepts for a brand new hypertext system.
The archivist of the university found out about Wendy’s enthusiasm and came to her with a task. Years before, the university was gifted the archives of the Earl of Mountbatten. These consisted of videos, images as well as talks. Hall formed a group to create a hypertext system that would let the browsing of the archives be simple on a computer. In 1989 during Christmas time, Microcosm was birthed.
However, Microcosm was only one of the group of hypertext systems that were being formed all around the globe. The World Wide Web was a different one that was created by Tim Berners-Lee. His associates in academics were not impressed with its relative absence of elegance; however, it instantly became famous due to the fact that it was easy and no cost was attached to its usage.
At first, Hall thought that Microcosm could exist together with the Web; therefore, her endeavors were channeled into making her hypertext system commercial. However, at that time, the Web was already everybody’s chosen medium
Chapter 8 – A digital-publishing trailblazer is Jaime Levy
Jaime Levy tagged herself as “the Kurt Cobain of the Internet” during the peak of the dot-com fantasy in New York City. That was a magnificent name, however, it wasn’t completely unnecessary. While Levy was living and growing up in Southern California, she’s always had more enthusiasm in the punk rock stage compared to computers, This soon altered when her boyfriend taught her how to create animations with computers and Levy got fascinated.
Levy tried out the interactive media that will make her become famous while she was schooling at New York University.
In the year 1990, after Levy graduated from school, she relocated to Los Angeles where she made an electronic magazine that was put on a floppy disc known as Electronic Hollywood. This consists of a lot of animations, games, and graphics, together with words. Levy named it “my, sorta, digital graffiti.” She shared these discs all around Los Angeles with the indie book as well as record shops and they constantly got out of stock. Immediately after, she was beginning to get noticed in the media for the work she put out.
Levy went back to New York City and this was where she turned into the first actual superstar of Silicon Alley – which is NYC’s solution to Silicon Valley. Billy Idol, the popular rock star was her fan and told her to make one of her brand floppy dicks complement his Cyberpunk album. Even though this album was not really successful, Levy’s fame continued to rise. When Levy found Mosaic which was the first ever web browser, she came to the realization that her electronic magazines were actually websites– this was even before the era websites were in existence. She thought to herself that this was actually her fate and future.
In the year 1995, Levy had a leading chance: she was employed to be the creative director at Word which is an online magazine that was new then. At Word, she had the chance to use her creative electronic-publishing abilities on the Web. Marisa Bowe was the first human she took together with her, Bowe was the initial influencer who she had come across on the online platform Echo,
Both Levy as well as Bowe did well in creating masterpieces that actually cut across the limits of what was likely with publishing online. In the year 1998, the publication online was having about one to two million targets each week. It got praised by top companies such as the New York Times as well as Newsweek.
Although Levy didn’t remain till the end, she quit her job at Word only a year and a half after, thinking she will have a lot of creative chances come her way, Rather, she discovered that there were becoming to go down and had been changed majorly by corporate works.
Although, Levy might not be a big name at the moment, however, her innovative work during the 1990s showed the whole creative options of online publishing.
Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet Claire L. Evans Book Review
Women were the pillar during the era of technology. Additionally, they were not awarded properly for their efforts, were ignored in spite of their creativity, and were not recorded in history. Yet, their revolution is still present and seen in this present days in the areas of the internet, computer programming as well as social networking- to mention only a little of it. In absence of the mental labor of women, our present universe would have not been able to be recognized.
