#657 The ENIAC Programmers: The Women Behind the First Modern Computer-Kathy Kleiman
The Not Old - Better Show
Paul Vogelzang
4.7 • 106 Ratings
🗓️ 19 August 2022
⏱️ 36 minutes
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Summary
The ENIAC Programmers: The Women Behind the First Modern Computer-Kathy Kleiman
The Not Old Better Show Smithsonian Associates Author Interview Series
Welcome to The Not Old Better Show on radio and podcast. I'm Paul Vogelzang, and we've got another great show as part of our Smithsonian Associates Art Of Living author interview series. Thank you so much for listening. We've got a great guest today, who I'll introduce in just a moment…But, quickly, if you missed any episodes, last week was our 656th episode, and we spoke to author Peter Alagona about his new book, Accidental Ecosystem…a great interview about the rise in animals living in urban America. Two weeks ago, I spoke with Dr. Chantel Prat about how we're wired and the human brain's adventure for each of us. If you missed those shows, you can go back and check them out along with my entire backlog of shows, all free for you there on our website, NotOldBetter.com…and if you leave a review, we will read it at the end of each show…leave reviews on Apple Podcasts for us.
As I said, our guest today is Kathy Kleiman, author, author, educator, and attorney who's written the new book, Proving Ground: The Untold Story of the Six Women Who Programmed the World's First Modern Computer and will be appearing at Smithsonian Associates coming up…check our show notes for details and more information.
After the end of World War II, top-secret research 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 new Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC).
The world's first general-purpose, programmable, all-electronic computer, ENIAC, was built to calculate a single ballistic trajectory in 20 seconds rather than 40 hours by a human hand—but there were no instruction codes or programming languages in existence to guide the women. They succeeded, but their story was never told to the reporters and scientists fascinated by the huge computer after it became public—and it was lost.
That, of course, is our guest today, author Kathy Kleiman, reading from her new book, Proving Ground: The Untold Story of the Six Women Who Programmed th
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Not Old Better Show on Radio and Podcast. I'm Paul Vogelsang, and we've |
| 0:05.2 | got another great show as part of our Smithsonian Associates Art of Living Author Interview |
| 0:10.3 | series. Thank you so much for listening today. We have got a great guest today, as I say, |
| 0:16.2 | I'll introduce her in just a moment, but quickly, if you missed any episodes last week or the |
| 0:21.5 | week before, our 656 episode was available. And we talked to Peter Alagona about his new book |
| 0:31.4 | accidental ecosystem, a great interview about the rise in animals living in urban America two weeks |
| 0:37.8 | ago. I spoke with Dr. Shantel Pratt about how we're wired and the human brains adventure for each |
| 0:45.2 | of us. If you've missed those shows or any others, you can go back and check them out along with |
| 0:50.3 | my entire backlog of shows all available free for you at our website, not old-better.com. |
| 0:58.1 | And if you leave a review, we'll read it at the end of each show, so leave reviews on Apple |
| 1:03.4 | podcasts for us. Thank you. Like I said, we have a great show today as part of our Smithsonian |
| 1:09.4 | Associates program. We're going to be talking with Kathy Climent. Kathy Climent is an author and |
| 1:14.7 | educator and attorney who's written the new book Proving Ground, the untold story of the six |
| 1:20.2 | women who programmed the world's first modern computer. It's an amazing story. I didn't know |
| 1:25.6 | anything about this, but we will learn a lot more. Kathy Climent will be appearing at Smithsonian |
| 1:31.4 | Associates coming up. So check out our show notes for details and more information. After the end |
| 1:38.1 | of World War Two, top secret research continued across the United States as engineers and programmers |
| 1:43.4 | rushed to complete their confidential assignments. Among them were six pioneering women tasked |
| 1:49.9 | with figuring out how to program the new electronic, numerical, integrator, and computer known |
| 1:56.6 | as ENIAC. The world's first general purpose programmable, all electronic computer ENIAC was built |
| 2:03.7 | to calculate a single ballistic trajectory for the Department of Defense, and they were able to |
| 2:10.3 | do that in 20 seconds, rather than the 40 hours it took to have a human hand involved. But |
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