The 6 Most Important Women in Computer History

I can not help. Every few months, I spent several days digging in the archives web obsessive about a specific topic. This frenzy months of curiosity comes from the ENIAC, the first electronic computer generalpurpose.

Short for Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, ENIAC celebrates the 65th anniversary of its creation February 14, 1946. As I started digging deeper into its origins, operation and demise in 1955, I discovered that most of the ENIAC programmers were women.

I switched gears and began studying the role women have played in the history of computing and technology, and what do you do? The names of women everywhere. I love history and I'm embarrassed to admit that I had no frickin idea.

So in honor of the Month Women's History, which begins in March, I give up public opinion in favor of identifying the six most important woman in the history of our favorite hobby. I bet the size and scope of their work will surprise you.

Ada Lovelace: The only legitimate daughter of Lord Byron, the addict to mathematics has an interest in the work of Charles Babbage, and is widely credited with writing the first computer program between 1842 and 1843, and recognize the ability of computers beyond the mere number crunching.

Jean Bartik: Born as Betty Jean Jennings Bartik was one of the first ENIAC programmers, the supercomputer of the army. When the Army introduced ENIAC to the public, it introduces the inventors (Dr. John Mauchly and J. Prespes Eckert) but not female programmers.

Roberta Williams: Carol Shaw, who made the 3D Tic-Tac-Toe in 1979, known as the first female game designer, Roberta Williams, but the design work for Sierra On-Line adventure game series in 1980 makes it easily the most influential woman in the history of the game designers.

Radia Perlman: Known as the "mother of the Internet," Radia is famous for his invention of a Spanning-Tree Protocol, a protocol that ensures loop-free topology for the bridge Ethernet LAN with automatic backup of pathing.

Grace Hopper: the commonly recognized as the ancestor of hardware-independent programming language, Hopper is also a developer of COBOL, the first man to develop the code compiler, and the creator of the term "debugging". Navy USS Hopper, named after him.

Frances Allen: A pioneer in the field of compiler optimization and parallelization and permanent IBM employee, Allen was the first woman to win Turing Award, which is basically a Nobel prize in science.

As you might imagine, this is just the tip of the iceberg. If you think I’m kidding, check matters out for yourself. Like me, you’re going to be surprised again and again.