Female computers

[altariel]

The Age of Female Computers: a review of When Computers Were Human by David Alan Grier.

I love it when you can see social processes broken down like this and all the workings showing. Like those really long writer credits on US TV shows that list who had the idea, who storylined it, and which poor bugger had to put the words down.

Comments

[steverogerson.livejournal.com]

Does it mention Gambit?

[hafren.livejournal.com]

Respected mathematicians would blithely approximate the problem-solving horsepower of computing machines in “girl-years” and describe a unit of machine labor as equal to one “kilo-girl.”

I love this! I wonder if they got miffed when it didn't collect their laundry or buy birthday cards for their wife?

[altariel.livejournal.com]

LOL! Sadly, no!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Or was smarter than it!

[the-wild-iris.livejournal.com]

Very interesting article - thanks for the link.

Now I'm thinking of the Dune universe, in which all of the computers are human.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Now I'm thinking of the Dune universe

*slaps forehead* Yes, of course!

[the-wild-iris.livejournal.com]

I can't think whether there were female Mentats. Perhaps the women all became Bene Gesserits and used the Voice to make the men do their calculations.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Ah - Feminine Wiles.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

Thanks. That is a very interesting piece.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of the writer (Carl Linderholm in Mathematics Made Difficult) who suggested a unit of beauty called the milli-Helen, being a face that could launch one ship.

[copracat]

Thank you for that link.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Glad it was interesting :-)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I must put the book on my library list, sounds fascinating.