Acclaimed picture book author laurie wallmark ada byron lovelace and the thinking machine once again tells the riveting story of a trailblazing woman. Grace hopper coined the term computer bug and taught computers to speak english. A pioneer in the field, she was one of the first programmers of the harvard mark i computer, and invented the first compiler for a computer programming language. Grace hopper was one of the pioneers in the early days of electronic computers. In grace hopper and the inventionof theinformation age, kurt beyer reveals a more authentic hopper, a vibrant and complex woman whose career paralleled the meteoric trajectory of the postwar computer industry. The story of grace hopper aka amazing grace stanley colors. By the turn of the millennium, it was estimated, 240 billion of the 300. Admiral hopper was born grace brewster murray on dec. Tim barrios, damon beyer, kevin dankwardt, and i were computer science majors at the university of lousiana at lafayette from 1977 to 1981. No doubt driven by the mainstream press coverage of the millennium bug and the more recent heartbleed, shellshock and ghost. The log book complete with bug is now in the national museum of american history. Grace murray hopper was an american computer scientist who is renowned for programming the first computers and was involved in development of cobol. As a child, she would often take apart household goods and put them back together.
Apr 19, 2015 code describes how women engineers, including ada lovelace and grace hopper, were influential in the early years of computer science, but have become footnotes in an official history that. Book trailers 1 discussion questionsguides guide from laurie wallmark. Grace hopper and the invention of the information age by kurt. Mar 29, 2008 the millennium bug crisis, from the edited h2g2, the unconventional guide to life, the universe and everything. He was one of the lead developers of the structured analysis techniques of the 1970s and a codeveloper of both the yourdonwhitehead method for objectoriented. Grace hopper was quite a lady, and thats reflected in this book. Grace murray hopper took an early interest in mathematics, earning a ph. Navy in 1986, she was the first woman restricted line officer. In 1934 she had been the first woman in yales 233year history to graduate. Celebrating women in tech at the grace hopper conference. Grace murray hopper december 9 1906 january 1 1992 was an american computer scientist and united states navy officer. Admiral of the cyber sea and millions of other books are available for amazon kindle. Technical documents grace murray hopper collection nmah. Howard aiken, the mark i was built by ibm engineers in endicott, n.
The 25ton harvard mark ii, also known as the aiken relay calculator, was the first computer built using highspeed electromagnetic relays instead. Sep 09, 2016 one offshoot of this is the annual grace hopper celebration, which has been active since it was founded in 1994 by dr. Grace murray hopper, hopper, grace murray hopper, grace. These are 5 infamous software bugs that went down in history. Part of the smithsonian little explorer series, grace hopper. Throughout hoppers later years, the popular media told this simplified version of her life story. She was one of the first people to work with modern digital computers and the first programmers of the harvard mark i calculator. On september 9, 1947, harvards mark ii aiken relay computer was malfunctioning. Indeed, i recently overheard an elderly couple on the tube discussing. While the book is very, very brief, loewen hits most of the highlights from grace hoppers life. For example, grace hopper logged and taped a moth bug in a log book, as shown below, that caused issues with the mark ii after it was discovered in one of its components. The mark i was acting up and giving incorrect results. The term computer bug was coined by navy computer pioneer grace hopper in the 1950s after a moth got into one of her machines and it. Navy rear admiral, grace hopper, was hard at work on the harvard mark ii computer when she suddenly encountered a problem the machine was returning consistent errors.
Grace murray hopper s greatest love was not the navy it was the navys mark i computer. Code and the quest for inclusive software the new yorker. Delighting in difficult ideas and in defying expectations, the insatiably curious hopper truly was amazing grace. Enter your mobile number or email address below and well send you a link to download the free kindle app. To know more about her childhood, profile, timeline and career read on. Then you can start reading kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer no kindle device required.
Oct 25, 2016 when i heard about the grace hopper scholarship i was excited to go to a conference where i could meet women from the industry and learn from them, harris said. The first computer bug in 1949, hopper transferred to work on the binary automatic computer. Hopper was born grace brewster murray in new york city. Read grace hopper admiral of the cyber sea by kathleen broome williams available from rakuten kobo. Volunteering for the us navy reserve, she was assigned to the bureau of ships computation project, where she worked on the harvard mark i project a calculating machine used in the war effort, from 19449, coauthoring several papers. She was a member of the vassar faculty from 1931 to 1943, when she joined the naval reserve. Technical documents, 1944 1949 images box 1, folder 1 mark i plugging manual images box 1, folder 2 reprints of the automatic sequence controlled calculator by aiken and hopper, i and ii. It was quite a life that she led, and that too is reflected in this book. Dec 09, 2014 the story of grace hopper aka amazing grace im a big fan of grace hopper and i wanted to pay tribute to this rarely recognized pioneer. On international womans day we remember grace hopper. Little did her family know, her curiosity would eventually gain her recognition from the highest office in the land. At a very young age grace murray hopper showed an interest in engineering.
Though the term bug cannot be attributed to admiral hopper, this did bring the term computer bug into popularity. Grace murray hopper, rear admiral, united states navy. Grace murray hopper may have been ahead of her time. When we were debugging mark ii, it was over in another building, and the windows had no screens on them and we were working on it at night, of course, and all the bugs in the world came in. Grace hopper became the first female individual recipient of the national medal of technology in 1991. Thirtyseven years later, president ronald reagan promoted her to rear admiral because of her pioneering work in computers.
Oct 24, 2016 every year, the grace hopper celebration ghc of women in computing is a reminder of how far our industry has come and encouraging to see the growing number of women pursuing careers in technology. For younger students, theres a young readers edition and a picture book. Interestingly, hopper is credited with first using the nowcommon it term bug in describing the secondgeneration mark ii computer, according to the book. Grace murray hopper author of understanding computers. Women hall of famers in mathematics and science 1st ed. Today is the day of grace murray hopper, aka amazing grace. High school students who enjoyed the 2016 blockbuster hidden figures can dive deeper into the true story of africanamerican women whose calculations helped launch nasa astronauts into space through margot lee shetterlys book of the same name. Grace hopper, born in new york in 1906, was an associate professor of mathematics at vassar when wwii broke out.
The 5 most infamous software bugs in history openmind. She always fought the status quo and the people that love to say weve always done it this way. C a computer bug so primitive it was an actual insect. Grace hopper wurde 1906 als grace brewster murray in eine. Bundles of books on y2k conspiracy theorists of every religion, occupation and hue have flooded the book shelves. Hopper taped the offending creature into her log book and noted beside it, first actual bug found. See more ideas about women in history, computer science and rear admiral. A software bug is an error, flaw or fault in a computer program or system that causes it to produce an incorrect or unexpected result, or to behave in unintended ways. Grace hopper did not invent the bug, but she did draw cartoons of gremlins that represented chads, or fragments, created when holes are made in her computers punched paper tapes. Navy considered grace hopper too old to be an officer. Admiral of the cyber sea, a north american society for oceanic history award winner, secret weapon. It was a privilege to attend this years conference and to see firsthand, how many women are contributors, mentors, innovators in our industry. When grace hooper retired as a rear admiral from the u. Grace hopper ebook by kathleen broome williams rakuten kobo.
In 1946, when hopper was released from active duty, she joined the harvard faculty at the computation laboratory where she continued her work on the mark ii and mark iii. In 1986, she told david letterman about meeting the president. Grace hopper and the invention of the information age. One offshoot of this is the annual grace hopper celebration, which has been active since it was founded in 1994 by dr. How a group of hackers, geniuses and geeks created the digital revolution. Grace murray hooper was an american computer scientist, who was also responsible for developing the first compiler for. The term bug has firmly entered our everyday lexicon. Grace hopper s moth is often considered the first use of the term bug. And its cobols dramatic success thats at the heart of the millennium bug. Grace brewster murray certainly suffered, at first at least, from the disadvantage of being a woman with an interest in technology. The process of finding and fixing bugs is termed debugging and often uses formal techniques or tools to pinpoint bugs, and since the 1950s, some computer systems have been designed to also deter, detect or autocorrect various. Are you planning to attend this years grace hopper celebration of women in computing, taking place on october 25 in minneapolis, minnesota, us created by the anita borg institute, this annual conference is named for rear admiral grace murray hopper, a pioneer in computing who worked on the first largescale commercial computerunivacand led the team that created the cobol.
Grace hopper and associates, while working on a mark ii computer at harvard university, discovered a moth stuck in a relay and thereby impeding operation, whereupon she remarked that they were debugging the system. Grace brewster murray hopper, december 9,1906 january 1,1992. An internal examination located the faulty relay and there jammed between the contacts was a moth beaten to death by the rapid opening and closing of the relay. Navy rear admiral grace hopper, coined the terms bug. On saturday, hell be at harvard to deliver a 20minute talk on computing pioneers like grace hopper, and then will moderate a. Queen of computer code by laurie wallmark, illustrated by katy wu sterling 2017 elementary this is a childrens book biography of grace hopper, who played a prominent role in the early days of computers. Watch grace hopper, the queen of software, crack jokes with letterman yes, microsoft ceo satya nadella put a bit of damper on things, with his, shall we say, ill. She certainly did things that were a little unusual for women of her day. What we can learn from grace hopper and the first reported bug. While many awards name grace hopper added to its name after her death in 1992,the award named grace murray hopper was awarded the association for computing machineryacm since 1971. Admiral grace hoppers log book contains the original computer bug. The woman behind computer programming by nancy loewen.
Thomas edison talked about bugs in electrical circuits in the 1870s. The automatic sequence controlled calculator harvard mark i was the first operating machine that could execute long computations automatically. The grace hopper program is a 17week, immersive software engineering program for women with no upfront tuition cost in new york city weeks of the course will be on campus. The woman behind computer programming is a 32page childrens book written for readers between six and eight years old. Throughout her life, she succeeded in doing what no one had ever done before. A bug is a general term used to describe any unexpected problem with hardware or software. Queen of computer code is a childrens picture book written by laurie wallmark and illustrated by katy wu. She and her team invented a0, the worlds first compiler.
Named for pioneer computer scientist grace murray hopper, the program is driven by three values. Grace hopper the programming seawoman a computer of. Highfrequency direction finding in the battle of the atlantic, and improbable warriors. Y2kaos by andrew gause warns of the possibility of the u. Grace hopper grace murray hopper december 9, 1906 january 1, 1992 was an american computer scientist and united states navy rear admiral. Grace murray hopper was born in new york city on 9 december 1906. Rear admiral grace murray hopper was an american computer scientist and united states navy officer. Throughout her life, hopper succeeded in doing what no one had ever done before. Grace hopper was born grace brewster murray in new york city. We were also association for computing machinery acm members. It is a biographical picture book of grace hopper who pioneered in computer programming and accomplishments have had lasting influence. Log book with computer bug national museum of american history. She is credited with the terms bug and debug for computer errors and how to fix them.
The harvard mark i computer, predecessor to the mark ii where the bug was found. Grace murray was admitted to vassar college at age 17 where she graduated phi beta kappa 1928 with a bachelors degree in mathematics and physics and earned her masters degree at yale university in 1930. In fact, there was more to the millennium bug than just new years eve. Dec 09, 20 grace brewster murray was born in new york in 1906. She coined the term computer bug after finding a moth stuck inside harvards mark ii computer in 1947 which in turn led to the term debug, meaning. She developed the first compiler for a computer programming language. Her englishlanguagebased flowmatic was the bedrock of the. Navy rear admiral grace hopper, coined the terms bug and debug after an incident involving harvard. Admiral grace hoppers log book contains the original. Its an oftrepeated tale that the grand dame of military computing, computer scientist and u. Edward nash yourdon april 30, 1944 january 20, 2016 was an american software engineer, computer consultant, author and lecturer, and software engineering methodology pioneer. May 12, 2014 grace hopper was a navy rear admiral credited with pioneering computer programming as we know it. A pioneer in the field, she was one of the first programmers of the harvard mark i computer, and developed the first compiler for a computer programming language.
Grace hopper scholarship winner attends women in tech. Then, determined to make programming accessible to more people, she replaced mathematical symbols in programming with everyday english words. The problem was traced to a moth stuck between relay contacts in the computer, which hopper duly taped into the mark iis log book with the explanation. She graduated from vassar college in 1928 and received a phd in mathematics from yale university in 1934.
The photograph on the books cover shows an elegant grace hopper in a black. The threeday conference was founded more than 20 years ago by dr. Hopper lived in a time when women didnt need to be educated, they were just going to be housewives, and they certainly. May 22, 2012 g race hopper, who became a coder or programmer in the 1940s, was one of the great pioneers of the computer age. After finding a moth inside the harvard mark ii computer on september 9th, 1947 at 3. Grace hopper and the univac eastmans online genealogy. Amazing grace hopper, the tiny old lady who changed our. The term bug was used in an account by computer pioneer grace hopper, who publicized the cause of a malfunction in an early electromechanical computer.
Hopper was born on december 9, 1906 in new york city. Kathleen broome williams, a graduate of wellesley college and columbia university, holds a ph. Before grace, people though all computers were good for, was doing math. If you dig a little deeper, though, it appears the use of bug to describe a technical problem has a complex historyand in fact, may not have originated with grace hopper at all. Admiral grace hopper, programming pioneer, assured the cosmo readers that. Without her work and the influence of her ideas on the development of computer programming, we may not see computer science as we. Born with curiosity the grace hopper story indiegogo promo. A software tester, workplace jester, cherished mentor, ace inventor, avid reader, naval leaderand rule breaker, chance taker, and troublemaker. After rooting through the massive machine to find the cause of the problem, admiral grace hopper, who worked in the navys engineering program at harvard, found the bug. Smithsonian image archive her cartoons got a little more literal in 1947, when a nowlegendary bug actually made its way into the mark ii. Everything you need to know about grace hopper in six books. Whether grace hopper really was the first to coin the term bug is an open question but her version of the story is at least fun. She later enlisted with the united states navy, eventually receiving the rank of.
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