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Grace Hopper, UNIVAC, and the First Programming Language
M-Saunders (706738) writes "It weighed 13 tons, had 5,200 vacuum tubes, and took up a whole garage, but the UNIVAC I was an incredible machine for its time. Memory was provided by tanks of liquid mercury, while the clock speed was a whopping 2.25 MHz. The UNIVAC I was one of the first commercial general-purpose computers produced, with 46 shipped, and Linux Voice has taken an in-depth look at it. Learn its fascinating instruction set, and also check out FLOW-MATIC, the first English-language data processing language created by American computing pioneer Grace Hopper."
I would have loved to have one of her nanoseconds she use to hand out when asked how long was a nanosecond. I remember when she was on the tonight show with Johnny Carson and told that story. She use to keep a bag full of them with her all the time and would hand them out, when someone would ask how long is a nanosecond. One smart lady!
Bah, you're the only one worried about that.
But anyway, all I wanted to say is to go look at that picture. Look at that control panel! Now that's technology. Switches! Meters! A model 30 (?) teletype with key travel measured in furlongs.
(And, as an aside, for a picture in the 1960's it was remarkably 'diverse'. A woman, a black man and and a skinny geek with a tie. Mayhaps we've not moved as far forward as we give ourselves credit for.)
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Faster than my first two computers, too, but neither of them weighed thirteen tons! Also, storage access would have been a much bigger problem than clock speed, seeing as how they used mercury switches to store bits.
I found this article about Univac fascinating, an account of Univac vs. humans.
It also mentions that a musical Hallmark card has more computing power than Univac did.
Free Martian Whores!
no one has claimed only space exploration spinoffs gave us computer tech. once again you raise a straw man and then set it on fire.
However, ICBM and space exploration certainly did drive integrated circuit technology for computers. First computers built of Jack Kirby's solid state integrated circuits used by the air force in Minuteman II guidance system
My mother was one of the first female programmers at Honeywell back in the `70s. Back then, IT companies recruited their programmers from the ranks of mathematicians (like mom).
Grace Hopper was a big hero to her, and one of the things I remember best is mom coming home with a short length of wire given out by Adm. Hopper at a speech -- sized to represent the distance electricity would travel in a nanosecond.
Mom is still coding, by the way, writing custom software for my dad's business in Python/Django/PostgreSQL. Dad complains that she's obsessed with the programming and won't do anything else. Sounds like me...thanks for the genes, mom!
Grace's big contribution from the time wasn't the particular FLOWMATIC language but rather she conceived of the compiler. And note her languages were intended to be legible even to non-programmers, what an usual concept eh?
Easy to say. When Grace was around she wasn't competing against Indian, Chinese, Brazilian and Russian university students being pumped out by the thousands every year.
Mostly random stuff.
And, as an aside, for a picture in the 1960's it was remarkably 'diverse'.
The guy with the suit jacket looks Indian. Who called tech support?
Have gnu, will travel.
Have gnu, will travel.
waddaya talking about, see those geek glasses and big honking nose, she wasn't sliding along on beauty, wan't hired for her looks. she got ahead on brains and accomplishment like a true geek icon
I've some doubts about quite a lot of the commonly accepted modern wisdom vis a vis women in the workplace back then and even previously. Most of the women in my family worked outside the home back in the 60s and 70s, some even had excellent careers. I would strongly question the narrative that second wave feminism "liberated" women or did much more than take credit for social changes which were well under way regardless due to increasing average wealth and the invention of labour saving domestic devices.
Going back even further, the book "No Votes for Women" explores some of the realities at the time of the Suffragettes and raises the point that we should be perhaps less asking how shitty conditions were for women in the past but rather asking how comparitively shitty it was for men - the answer is usually quite a bit more:
"Almost immediately after the April committee meetings, Helena Gilder detailed the reasons she opposed woman suffrage in a long letter to her dearest friend , Mary Hallock Foote...
She , like many other anti-suffragists, believed in an inextricable link between military service and voting; only a person able to sacrifice himself on the battlefield earned the right to vote."
"In view of the privileges they already had women did not need political rights. Mariana Van Rensselaer articulated her particular views about women in articles for the New York World in May and June 1894;...She considered the enfranchisement of millions of women a risk not worth taking. Women already held more privileges than men under the law.
Specifically, Van Rensselaer wrote, a woman had control of her earnings, her personal property, and any real estate she owned. She could carry on a business or profession, she had no responsibility for her husband’s debts, and she was not required to support him.
She could sue and be sued, and she could make contracts. She had no obligation to serve on juries. With her husband she had equal rights to their children and, yet, he was obligated to support her and her children. Women were entitled to alimony in the event of a divorce, while a man could not ask for alimony.
She was entitled to one third of her husband’s real estate upon his death, but he was not entitled to her property after death if there were no children. Van Rensselaer concluded that the distribution of labor and privileges between women and men seemed fair, that the different roles of women and men were critically important, and that it was “slander” to claim that men did not already take good care of women."
no, Rear Admiral, Lower Half. But during WW II, her rank was Lieutenant, Junior Grade. She retired with rank of Commander in 1966. But then returned to service and was promoted to Captain in 1973, and by act of Congress Commodore in 1983. That rank had its name changed to the RA, LH in the 90s
yeah they should have used red mercury instead of mercury in those delay line memory tubes!
Other Slashdot Grace Hopper stories here... http://developers.slashdot.org...
They were still quite unreliable. But it's my understanding that what they were doing was running them at reduced power for useful computations (which worked since even the tubes used in computers were always sort of high-power components, comparatively speaking, and you didn't actually need their full power to implement computer logic). Then, in maintenance periods, they'd run them on full power for a while, and replace those that burned out during that period. That is supposedly what actually made it possible to rung long stateful computations even with vacuum tubes.
Ezekiel 23:20
I'm an old guy, and I'm telling you that what you just said was, well, un-educated. It's hard to come up with a good word for that without sounding pejorative, so I apologize in advance. Anyway, I've heard this before and it's bullshit. It always seems to come from people who were born into wealth or privilege.
It's very much like "slaves got free food and shelter, so what were they complaining about argument".
Did you notice that the list of privileges you laid out are all in relation to a husband? For almost all women before the 1960's the only possible comfortable life was by having a husband. People in power had absolutely no problem with refusing jobs, loans, or admittance to anything by saying to her face "no, you're a female, this is for men ". Trust me on this; I was there.
until the 1960's:
Almost no University or medical school (except women's colleges) would accept her as a student unless she was a blood relative of a faculty member or wealthy donor.
Those that did accept women only allowed them into nursing, teaching, or similar programs. yes, I know there were a few exceptions and those were EXCEPTIONS, so don't give us any examples of someone who got in.
Almost no bank would grant a loan for business or property without the written permission of her husband, unless she was a blood relative of one of the bank's officers.
Almost no career advancement path was available for a woman, but they could do the same work with a lower title. Women could be bookkeepers, but not accountants. They could move from clerk to office manager (of clerks), but not district or regional managers.
Yes, there were women that got careers and did well. My mother was one of those, but had to fight bald-faced anti-female discrimination constantly. No one should go through what she did just to get her job done. She was an exception, probably a 5-sigma IQ and also raised as a tomboy, and also had a husband who backed her up. Very few people can't bring to a fight what she was born with; she was one of the exceptions.
But for every one of those there were countless others who had the door slammed in their face or stabbed in the back for the sole reason they were female.
not fiber. point to point laser and microwave links.
I believe you are referring to ultra-low-latency trading.
They prefer microwave links to fiber because the microwave signals propagate faster through air than light does through a glass fiber. Light travels through glass fiber at about 65% of c, which is also pretty comparable to the velocity of a electric signal in a transmission line (.65 to .75 c) (which is where Admiral Hopper ties in)
Microwave signals propagate though air at damned close to the speed of light, and the microwave signal paths are direct by necessity. That means the path can be significantly less than half the distance a cable (electric or optic) and the speed about 50% faster.
Optical paths are also used, they are by laser through the air. This has the same direct path, near c speed advantages as microwave.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
It's very much like "slaves got free food and shelter, so what were they complaining about argument".
Aaand we're off. Women as historical slaves. Let's take a closer look at that, shall we?
NO, that's not what I said. I did NOT say women were historical slaves.
I am comparing the points made by of Gilder and Rensselaer (that women had certain advantages in society) to the similar points made by slavery apologists.
Perhaps, I did a bad job of what I was stating. I am comparing the type of argument, not the living conditions. Once again, I am NOT stating that women were historical slaves. For one thing, in western society at least, marriage was voluntary.
Did you notice that the list of privileges you laid out are all in relation to a husband?
Yes, that was the point I was making. Wives in comparison to husbands, people of equivalent social status except one has more priveleges than the other, and it turns out that it wasn't the husband. This came from a woman of the time incidentally, and an awful lot of women agreed with her. Of course they were probably also incensed at the attitudes of the suffragettes towards poor folk and those of colour.
The point I'm making is that these advantages were only between husband and wife. Not everyone is married. I don't see why single women should be punished for the advantages married women have.
For almost all women before the 1960's the only possible comfortable life was by having a husband.
So any unmarried women rapidly died off in poverty?
NO! I did not say that!
I meant what I said. What I said was "For almost all women before the 1960's the only possible comfortable life was by having a husband."
How can you conflate not "being comfortable" with "died off in poverty"?
Seriously, how?
People in power had absolutely no problem with refusing jobs, loans, or admittance to anything by saying to her face "no, you're a female, this is for men ". Trust me on this; I was there.
And do you think that was because they hated women or didn't want to have to deal with long absences if she got pregnant? There's usually a practical reason for all of this stuff once you scratch the surface and dispense with the hysterics.
Well, the answer is "all of the above". Some hated women; misogynists had free reign not so long ago, and there was no body of law to stop them.
True, some "didn't want to have to deal with long absences if she got pregnant", but that was an after-the-fact excuse. The people who said those kinds of things would not hire a women under any circumstance, so the pregnancy argument is BS. It falls into the same kinds of reason people gave for why they would not hire a Catholic or a Jew. It's just an excuse for their bias. And yes, there may be practical reasons for all this stuff, but the point is you cannot exclude all of a class of people (women) on the grounds that some have a problem, like getting pregnant.
Almost no University or medical school (except women's colleges) would accept her as a student unless she was a blood relative of a faculty member or wealthy donor.
Which applied to men also. Third level education was for rich people back then.
Are you being intentionally obtuse? This has nothing to do with being rich or poor.
Most universities did not consider nor accept the applications of females. When you look closer at the cases of those few who did get in, you'll find that those women did not go through the application process, they were admitted through the intervention of a person of influence.
yes, I know there were a few exceptions and those were EXCEPTIONS, so don't give us any examples of someone who got in.
Okay, so
Dang, my other response got posted as AC. It's pretty obvious it was me.
I found his post to question conventional wisdom, but it's certainly not "un-educated". You seem to be responding to someone else's post, or someone else's opinion. Being "an old guy", perhaps you're simply making the same response that's won you praise over your entire life. i.e. "women have had to fight for rights and were actively discriminated against".
As a side note, I haven't won praise over my entire life because I was on the wrong side for a very long time. The reformed sinner is the most annoying; that's me.
That seems to be your entire response. While what you say is true, the conversation has shifted among generations now, so perhaps you need to make note of that.
I really think you need to go back and re-read what the OP said (especially if your response is it's simply "un-educated"). He's simply questioning whether the the gains women have gotten came through second wave feminism or through other means.
And he's right to question whither the gains came, and it's complex and interesting topic.
I think there's a lot of truth to that. A lot of women went to work because of economic need, not because of ideology. Economically having half the work force idle isn't advantageous. Essentially a lot of women got jobs because the family needed the money, not because they read "the second sex", or because Gloria Steinhem existed.
And I think you're correct there as well. I do agree that the feminist movement was not responsible for women wanting to get jobs.
However, a big part of the problem was that previously women were prevented from getting many jobs due to legally allowed anti-female bias. They did not apply to schools that did not accept their applications, and they did not apply for jobs that they knew would would be denied. The feminist movement did much to fix those laws.
You can disagree if you like, and that's fine, but having a different opinion on where change comes isn't un-educated.
Nowhere did the OP make any claims that banks wouldn't give out loans, or that women weren't discriminated against. That's an argument I think you've been making for years, and people of your generation have fought you on. The OP is younger than you, and comes from a very different background and likely takes very different opinions than people of your generation. So taking him to task and putting him in the place of a member of your generation kind of misses the point, and the point that the OP was trying to make.
Well, you got me there - I may be making assumptions about where he's coming from that aren't there.
However, here's what he said:
>quote>I've some doubts about quite a lot of the commonly accepted modern wisdom vis a vis women in the workplace back then and even previously. Most of the women in my family worked outside the home back in the 60s and 70s, some even had excellent careers.
That's what puts it in my ballpark.
He is implying that because some women (his relatives) had good careers back in the 60's and 70's the commonly accepted wisdom is in doubt.
That is the part I'm saying he is uneducated on. As I said before, there's not a good word that doesn't sounds pejorative. On second thought, I could have said "you don't know what you're talking about."
Anyway. It's nice that he had relatives that had good careers, but my point is that for MOST women they could NOT have many careers due to institutionalized anti-female bias on many levels. That is the part I'm saying he is uneducated on. Anti-female bias was still legal and still the standard in the 60's and was only beginning to go away in the 70's. The removal of legally allowed anti-female bias (or rather the creating the laws that prohibited bias) was largely done by the feminist movement - they are the people who got the work done.
Also, I strongly