Official News - page 4

REAL LIFE NEWS: HAPPY BIRTHDAY ENIAC

by Hazed

February 14 is Valentine's Day but for computer geeks, the day after is more significant. On February 15, 1946, the world's first programmble electronic computer was unveiled. The Electronic Numerical Integrator and COmputer (ENIAC) was the direct ancestor of all our modern-day computers, including the one I am typing on right now.

Of course, it didn't look much like my PC, nor behave like it. For a start, it weighed about 27 tons, so would hardly have fit on a desktop. To reprogram the computer meant physically changing it by resetting switches and swapping around removable cables. It had no way of storing a program, so if you wanted to change its function, you were in for a session of switch-and-cable-manipulating.

What's surprising when you look at the history of computing is that the geeks working on ENIAC were not all men. Most of ENIAC's programming was carried out by a group of women: Fran Bilas, Better Jennings (later known as Jean Bartik), Ruth Lichterman, Kay McNulty, Betty Snyder (later known as Betty Holberton) and Maryln Westcoff. These women are the intellectual and professional forerunners of all modern programmers - without them, I wouldn't be typing this, and you wouldn't be reading it. Cheers, dears!

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