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Proving Ground: The Untold Story of the 6 Women Who Programmed the First Modern Computer | Inspiring Tech History for Women in STEM & Computer Science Enthusiasts
Proving Ground: The Untold Story of the 6 Women Who Programmed the First Modern Computer | Inspiring Tech History for Women in STEM & Computer Science Enthusiasts

Proving Ground: The Untold Story of the 6 Women Who Programmed the First Modern Computer | Inspiring Tech History for Women in STEM & Computer Science Enthusiasts

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Discover a fascinating look into the lives of six historic trailblazers in this World War II-era story of the American women who programmed the world's first modern computer. After the end of World War II, the race for technological supremacy sped on. Top-secret research into ballistics and computing, begun during the war to aid those on the front lines, continued across the United States as engineers and programmers rushed to complete their confidential assignments. Among them were six pioneering women, tasked with figuring out how to program the world's first general-purpose, programmable, all-electronic computer—better known as the ENIAC—even though there were no instruction codes or programming languages in existence. While most students of computer history are aware of this innovative machine, the great contributions of the women who programmed it were never told—until now.  Over the course of a decade, Kathy Kleiman met with four of the original six ENIAC Programmers and recorded extensive interviews with the women about their work. Proving Ground restores these women to their rightful place as technological revolutionaries. As the tech world continues to struggle with gender imbalance and its far-reaching consequences, the story of the ENIAC Programmers' groundbreaking work is more urgently necessary than ever before, and Proving Ground is the celebration they deserve.

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This book tells the story behind the six women who programmed the ENIAC, the first programmable electronic general-purpose computer, around 1945. There are many similarities between these women and the women portrayed in the book and movie, “Hidden Figures.”The ENIAC computer was used to calculate the trajectory of artillery shells. The ENIAC programmers were able to program this machine to perform these calculations in minutes, instead of the days required by manual calculator methods.Although the work done by these women was extremely important, they were treated by many people at the time as no more than glorified clerks, not deserving of any special recognition. At ENIAC’s first public demonstration event, they served as hostesses, serving refreshments to the attendees.This was an important chapter in the history of computers and computer programming. While Lady Ada Lovelace is often referred to as the “first programmer,” these ladies had an actual computer to program. It could be argued that the people–men and women–who wired the plugboards for IBM unit record machines beginning in the 1930’s, might be considered the first programmers.These ladies did exceptional work, and it is good that Ms. Kleiman has documented their story.