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Dec 6, 2023

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Jacob Levesque SYST/HIST 202 Class 5 – Computers and Communications Homework Discussion Questions Light, “When Computers were Women” Real People Behind NASA’s Hidden Figures: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0STm4i5hIE See also in assignment folder: The Secret History of Women in Coding Glass Universe review The female calculators of Jerome Lalande (even if you don’t read French, you should be able to get the gist of the presentation about 18 th -century female computers) 1. You are working on a multinational project whose participants are from cultures having widely varying views on the role of women in the workplace. Your boss asked you to set the stage by describing the differences in the duties performed by the men and women in the ENIAC project. Why do you think certain tasks were considered “female”, and some were “male”? Do you see similar distinctions today between people who fill specific roles in engineering or the sciences – not necessarily gender-based, but in terms of personalities, education, economic or social status, etc.? - When you research the ENIAC project the two names that are most associated are J. Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly. They were the two men who had a hand in its development and along with their team they built the hardware for ENIAC. Amazingly enough there were six women who did all the programming for the project and their names were kept hidden for decades. They were recruited as “human calculators” by the military and used mechanical desktop calculators. I believe that hands on work has always been considered to be more of a male oriented job. When it comes to making things in a factory or construction people typically think male jobs. Sitting behind a computer used to be much more of a female job such as receptionists. As long as time men have been seen in society as the strong muscle and the women to have intellect and care. 2. Look up Grace Hopper, who was a “computer” for the Harvard Mark 1 at the same time as the women in this article were working on ENIAC. How did her early experience affect her later career? Why was she an important figure in the history of computing? - Grace Hopper was an extremely impressive woman. She attended Vassar College and

after graduation went on to attend yale and get her masters and Ph.D. Her academic achievements gave her an extremely strong base for the rest of her career. She joined the Navy and began working on the Harvard Mark 1 project which launched her into the world of computing. Her experience after working on the Mark 1 and other computer projects in the military provided her with invaluable hands-on experience in early computer tech. Her biggest contribution to computer science was her help in developing COBOL the programming language. Her work in the Navy combined with her later career in the private sector made her realize the necessity for a common business-oriented language hence COBOL. She also developed the first compiler which was used to translate high-level programming languages into machine code. With this people could push further and create more sophisticated software and languages. Lastly she was an extremely useful resource and was practically a library of important early computer science knowledge. Balbi, “Italian Broadcasting” See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_newspaper http://earlyradiohistory.us/sec003.htm 1. Which factors kept telephone broadcasting alive in the face of competition from radio? Which ones led to its demise? - In the beginning telephones had a major head start over radio. Telephone lines were already widespread and established while the radio technology was still young. In certain areas the telephone companies had monopolized the infrastructure and could allow telephone broadcasting services without allowing the radio stations in. A big factor helping the telephone was having much more reliable audio quality compared to the radio which had to deal with static and interferences. However, there were many factors which would inevitably lead to the downfall of telephone broadcasting. The first obviously being the rapid advancement in radio technology. They reached a point where the signal quality and coverage far outreached the telephone. Radios could provide international and national news and entertainment. Radios also offered much more variety in their content such as music, live events, and serialized drama. Lastly over time radio receivers were becoming more and more affordable and user friendly. Phones became primary means of personal communication and nothing more.

2. You are developing systems and applications for a new generation of portable wireless devices. Write a short memo explaining some of the “media convergence” lessons of the Araldo Telfonico experience that you can incorporate in the planning of these new services. Media convergence is the process of bringing together separate media technologies through digitization and computer networks. There are three C’s of media convergence; computing, communication, and content. We need to make sure we cover all of these in our new wireless device. Communication concerns people being able to talk with others through the device. Content is what will mostly fill the device. Having things that tell the time, weather, and other simple things like that add variety and make the device more useful.

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