  Thomas
Haigh,
Associate Professor
Working on ENIAC:
The Lost Labors of the Information
Age
Books and shows about the history of information
technology have usually focused on great inventors and
technical breakthroughs, from Charles Babbage and Alan
Turing to Steve Jobs and the World Wide Web. Work by
non-geniuses, particularly operations work, has been
written out of the popular history of innovation, but
without it no computer would be useful. Information
historian Thomas Haigh is writing it back in. This talk
focused on ENIAC, the first general purpose electronic
computer, based on research for his book ENIAC in
Action: Making and Remaking the Modern Computer,
recently published by MIT Press. Haigh explains that the
six women now celebrated as the “first computer
programmers” were actually hired as computer operators
and worked hands-on with the machine around the clock.
Other women, who actually built ENIAC, have been
forgotten entirely, as have the contributions of other
people working on vital aspects of the project, from
procuring the right kind of wire to saving ENIAC from
flood water. See more here
and at www.EniacInAction.com
tirsdag, den 20 marts kl. 17.00
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