3 ms·

Because then they'd have to make a movie about female scientists in WWII and the Manhattan project and how male scientists were happy to work with them and make

Because then they'd have to make a movie about female scientists in WWII and the Manhattan project and how male scientists were happy to work with them and make use of them. The computers were not significant contributors -- they were replaceable people doing menial calculations.

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
> they were replaceable people doing menial calculations That was my impression, too. Is it accurate?
- Jensson 4y ago
  Was a period in transition to electric computers where mostly women programmed those calculations. My grandmother worked with that, programming numerical methods in the era when programs was written on punched tape, and later on using punched cards made things so much easier since you could split the program into parts instead of each program being a long paper strip. At least that was what she said. I think it quickly shifted to men once programming the computers got easier with digital storage and displays and keyboards.
  - convolvatron 4y ago
    not that quickly - there were still plenty of women kicking around in the era of the sun workstation.
    - Jensson 4y ago
      My grandmother retired around that time, was replaced by 2 guys. Most of the women might still have been there, but with how the amount of computers and people working with them increased the share of women working in the field quickly shrank. There were a lot of women who did the equivalent of modern excel work back then though. My uncle said the company took all the secretaries and spent 2 weeks getting all the numbers in order to make the yearly report, and how he convinced them to buy a computer and he used it to get it done in a day, was in the 70's. I'd guess that transformation involved the female computers at many companies, but the programming to get that done is very simple so you don't need dedicated programmers and I wouldn't call the people working on that programmers, my uncle was a business guy and not a computer wiz he just bought a computer and followed the manual.
      - Ancapistani 4y ago
        > my uncle was a business guy and not a computer wiz he just bought a computer and followed the manual. Uh… that describes my early training pretty well. Once Google and then StackOverflow came on the scene, replace “manual” with “searching the Internet” and it still applies.
macintux 4y ago
At least one computer helped found an entire field of physics. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32411769 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32411769
- SamReidHughes 4y ago
  Born in 1928, an undergrad in 1951, if she was working as a teenager as a "computer" in WWII, that was menial calculation.
  - macintux 4y ago
    Not WWII, but shortly after, hired in 1952 as a computer.

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago

> they were replaceable people doing menial calculations That was my impression, too. Is it accurate?

Jensson 4y ago
Was a period in transition to electric computers where mostly women programmed those calculations. My grandmother worked with that, programming numerical methods in the era when programs was written on punched tape, and later on using punched cards made things so much easier since you could split the program into parts instead of each program being a long paper strip. At least that was what she said. I think it quickly shifted to men once programming the computers got easier with digital storage and displays and keyboards.
- convolvatron 4y ago
  not that quickly - there were still plenty of women kicking around in the era of the sun workstation.
  - Jensson 4y ago
    My grandmother retired around that time, was replaced by 2 guys. Most of the women might still have been there, but with how the amount of computers and people working with them increased the share of women working in the field quickly shrank. There were a lot of women who did the equivalent of modern excel work back then though. My uncle said the company took all the secretaries and spent 2 weeks getting all the numbers in order to make the yearly report, and how he convinced them to buy a computer and he used it to get it done in a day, was in the 70's. I'd guess that transformation involved the female computers at many companies, but the programming to get that done is very simple so you don't need dedicated programmers and I wouldn't call the people working on that programmers, my uncle was a business guy and not a computer wiz he just bought a computer and followed the manual.
    - Ancapistani 4y ago
      > my uncle was a business guy and not a computer wiz he just bought a computer and followed the manual. Uh… that describes my early training pretty well. Once Google and then StackOverflow came on the scene, replace “manual” with “searching the Internet” and it still applies.

macintux 4y ago

At least one computer helped found an entire field of physics. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32411769 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32411769

SamReidHughes 4y ago
Born in 1928, an undergrad in 1951, if she was working as a teenager as a "computer" in WWII, that was menial calculation.
- macintux 4y ago
  Not WWII, but shortly after, hired in 1952 as a computer.