When Computers Were Human

[June 6, 2007]
What did it mean to be a human computer? Who were the first ones? Before Palm Pilots and iPods, PCs and laptops, the term "computer" referred to people who did scientific calculations by hand. In his book When Computers Were Human, David Alan Grier, editor of IEEE Annals of History of Computing, offers the first in-depth account of these workers, who were neither calculating geniuses nor idiot savants but knowledgeable people who, in other circumstances, might have become scientists in their own right. Beginning with the return of Halley's Comet in 1758 and the effort of three French astronomers to compute its orbit to the UNIVAC electronic computer projecting its 1986 orbit, Grier traces "human computers" through the ages. Join Grier, along with former "computers," for this look into a little-known slice of high tech history.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Computer
• History
• calculators
• IEEE
• human

[Arkimedes999]

Who is this guy? He's very dismissive of women as most scholars of our time.

At the very least give credit to both as pictures prove both men and women worked on these problems.

as for 15:00

It's documented the Mayans accurately calculated Hayley comet

but the Mayan hieroglyph's weren't decoded until 50 years later; as records show by

a woman though television seams to want to credit a man.

[Arkimedes999]

Also the first computer who's brainchild was a dead man a woman, his widowed wife

completed. Also the first computer language was written by a woman Grace Hopper.

The list of accomplishments women were responsible for but have been credited to a man

are endless.  On few has truth call to be it's keeper.

[Herosi5]

Thanks for this conference, I was looking for something like this, some essential information about computers and its beginning, here I have founded, thank you again.

from: México