This time there is actually a bug in the computer and we’re talking about the gal who found it! Bonnie’s 1 Cool STEM Thing is all about the lady with a long name whose work was pivotal to early modern computers. Rear Admiral Grace Brewster Murray Hopper created the first computer language and wrote the book on the Mark 1. So boot up because we’re going into the code and we’re a little scared of the technology because Alexa and Facebook are listening!
YouTube Version
Show Notes & Extras
- Gal Pals this month are Dr. Leah Leach, Bonnie Fillenwarth, and Lisa Meece
- Come see all these gal-pals at Starbase Indy this Thanksgiving Weekend!
- Get-to-know-you-question: What emerging technology are you most excited or terrified about?
- Wiretapping fun
- Learning vs. Alexa
- The real-life tolley problem!!
- Face Off, Star Wars, Lion King!
- Bonnie’s 1 Cool Thing is Grace Brewster Murray Hopper
- “Grandmother of COBOL”
- “Grand Lady of Software”
- Took apart alarm clocks to see how they work
- Ph.D. from Yale before becoming a math teacher
- Got married and divorced.
- Pearl Harbor happened and Grace joined the Navy at 35 years old
- The Navy sent her to work on the Harvard Mark 1 Computer
- How better computers are today
- How Aiken was “wired differently”
- Grace came up with the compiler
- The “bug” in the computer story
- Special appointment of Commander (later changed to Rear Admiral)
- Grace served 42 years in the Navy
- You can see a lot of her personality in this David Letterman interview
- COBOL is still used today in ATM’s
- Grace is buried in Arlington Cemetery
- She has a Navy ship missle-destroyer named after her USS Hopper
- Books: Grace Hopper: Admiral of the Cyber Sea by Katherine Broom Williams
- Book: Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age by Kurt W. Beyer
- Smithsonian “Not On Display”
- What’s in a name?
- Rear Admiral Grace Brewster Murray Hopper wrote the manual for the Mark 1.
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