I recall that as well. I think part of the reason was that programming was far less technical then. There were a lot of programming teams where it was "you do

I recall that as well. I think part of the reason was that programming was far less technical then. There were a lot of programming teams where it was "you do the balance screen, and you do the deposit screen, and you do the help screen, etc". I can think of quite a few episodes of (usually) women coming up to me and asking for me to peel off small tasks for them to work on. These days that just doesn't fly as much. I do recall plenty of sharp women, but they tended to do math, EE, physical sciences, or even CS proper (i.e., math). Not really any advanced programmers, though. Seems understandable--programming is a rather tedious and solitary activity. Maybe a bit like music composition. I wouldn't do it myself if I wasn't driven by it (and from a very young age, with absolutely no assistance from anyone around me).