More hidden figures: the ENIAC six

The ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), revealed to the public in 1946, was the world’s first general-purpose electronic computer.

Built in secret by the US Army during World War II, it was designed to calculate artillery firing tables – complex equations used to help howitzers hit distant targets under varying weather conditions. At its unveiling, journalists were staggered by the machine’s ability to reduce week-long calculations to under a minute. 

Photographs from the demonstration showed proud male engineers posing beside the massive device – and six unknown women, written off at the time as “refrigerator ladies”, a dismissive term for models posing next to machinery they did not understand. But these women were not models. They were the first programmers of ENIAC. Kay McNulty, Betty Jennings, Betty Jean Bartik, Marlyn Wescoff, Frances Bilas and Ruth Lichterman were assigned to program the machine – a task considered clerical at the time – translating complex ballistic equations into logical sequences ENIAC could execute.

Their work is especially remarkable given the era: there were no programming languages, no compilers and no computer science courses to teach the fundamentals. The women were handed complex circuit diagrams of ENIAC – built with 17,000 vacuum tubes and miles of wiring – and left to decipher how it functioned.

With no manuals and no prior examples to follow, they taught themselves to program from scratch. This meant physically configuring the machine: setting hundreds of switches by hand and plugging in cables to carry out calculations.

They pioneered modular problem-solving – now a foundation of software engineering – and implemented early forms of parallel programming, a technique still considered advanced today. Their work included some of the first methods for testing and debugging, often crawling inside ENIAC’s towering panels to trace errors. Using flowcharts and logic diagrams, they developed a structured approach to programming long before formal tools or standards existed.

Experimental, precise and intellectually demanding, their efforts helped redefine programming – not as mere mechanical support, but as a sophisticated, vital discipline in its own right. There was no concept of software, until these women invented it. 

While driving a group of teenage girls to their football match, I couldn’t help but overhear their conversation about the upcoming A-level exams. One admitted she wasn’t sure how her favourite subject choices would lead to a clear career path.  You just might have to invent a new field yourself then, I mused to myself. Dream big, young women!

Adrian Francalanza is a professor of the Department of Computer Science, ICT, at the University of Malta. He referenced the 2022 book Proving Ground by Kathy Kleiman in this article.

Photo of the week

Photos: The Bartik Family/Bill Mauchly/Priscilla Holberton/ Teitelbaum Family/Meltzer Family/Spence Family. https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-women-behind-eniac

The ENIAC six: (clockwise from top left) Betty Jean Bartik, Kay McNulty, Betty Snyder, Ruth Lichterman, Marlyn Wescoff and Frances Bilas. While they were not immediately recognised for their contributions, their legacy has since been acknowledged and celebrated. Their legacy serves as an inspiration to all those who seek to push the boundaries of technology and contribute to the ever-evolving world of computer science. 

DID YOU KNOW?

•         Margaret Hamilton led the team that developed the onboard software for NASA’s Apollo missions to the moon, and coined the term “software engineering”.

•         Captain Grace Hopper was the first to advocate for computer programming and developed the first compiler, laying the foundation for modern programming languages.

•         Karen Spärck Jones is a pioneer in natural language processing and information retrieval, foundational to modern search engines and AI systems dealing with language. She famously said, “Computing is too important to be left to men”.

•         Hedy Lamarr was an actress and inventor who developed the technology that would one day form the basis for today’s WiFi, GPS and Bluetooth communication systems.

For more trivia, see: www.um.edu.mt/think.

Sound Bites

•         As of 2024, women make up only 13.8% of ICT specialists in Malta, highlighting a significant gender gap in the sector. In 2022, just 15.4% of all tertiary-level graduates earned qualifications in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), with women representing approximately 29.3% of that group – amounting to only 4.5% of all graduates.

While the overall proportion of STEM graduates dipped slightly to 14.2% in 2023, the share of female STEM graduates rose to 32.8%, even as the number of male STEM graduates declined by 6.7%. Specific data for ICT graduates remains unavailable, making it difficult to assess gender representation in that field more precisely.

For more science news, listen to Radio Mocha on www.fb.com/RadioMochaMalta/.