Jean Bartik with Linda O

Tonight, the Computer History Museum in Mountain View presented a conversation with Jean Jennings Bartik, one of the original programmers of ENIAC. Last night Bartik was named a Fellow of the Computer History Museum, along with Ethernet inventor Bob Metcalfe and Linux originator Linus Torvalds. Tonight’s program was presented in an interview format, hosted by Northern California Public Broadcasting (KQED & KTEH) chief content officer Linda O’Bryon.

ENIAC was “the first general-purpose electronic computer”, according to Wikipedia, although in truth it was built with one main project in mind: calculating firing tables for World War II artillery. In fact, Bartik was first hired to the job of “computer” herself, using a desktop calculator to compute shell trajectories at the rate of about one per week. When a position working on the secret ENIAC project opened up, she took it hoping to use her math skills for less repetitive jobs than the manual calculations she had been doing.

Bartik was responsible for converting ENIAC, which was originally programmed by physically turning switches and connecting wires between components, to a stored-program computer. Later she continued to work for ENIAC’s inventors at the Eckert & Mauchly Corporation, which she called a “technical Camelot”, and then at Remington-Rand which she described as a “job from hell”. Then, she left the field for 16 years to raise a family, but returned to work with minicomputers after her children were grown.

Bartik and the other five original ENIAC programmers received little attention when ENIAC was revealed to the public, with most honors going to the engineers who designed the electronic hardware. Only 30 years later did these pioneers start to gain notice as their story was uncovered by journalists interested in the important role women played in the early history of computers.

The presentation was an excellent opportunity to hear the reminiscences and observations of one of the world’s first computer programmers, who for most of a long career received little credit for her contributions to the earliest development of computing.