Grace Murray Hopper:The Spark for the Information Explosion Essay

Grace Hopper was an American Computer Scientist and U.S. Navy rear admiral. She was also known as the Queen of Computing, Queen of Coding, Admiral Grace, and more. She created the first compiler, a program, that translated human readable language into computer executable machine language. She was an example of creativity, intelligence, and perseverance.

Personal computers are now a very common item in many households. More than one million personal computers had been sold and by in the mid 1980s, it had risen to 30 million. Personal computers have been a big help in today’s society, and it also helps me with my homework, research papers, essays, and much more. The first African American ever to receive the honor as IBM fellow was, Dr. Mark Dean. In this research paper, I will highlight the importance of the personal computer and how it has an impact on society then and now.

Computers in general give people the ability to complete tasks that would have taken days or weeks to complete with the clicks of a few buttons. As technologies continue to grow the amount of adjustments that will be needed to make will be astronomical. However, society is aiming to help people gain the skills needed to push mankind further. In Davidson’s essay, she discusses how computers and technology can be put to many applicable situations. While working with her students, the “Duke students came up with dozens of stunning new ways to learn [and] almost instantly students figured out that they could record lectures on their iPods and listen to them for leisure” (Davidson 52). This advancement took a few weeks at one college campus in the United States when the technology was still being developed. Now, students have adapted to begin working across the globe to further society with new ideas for applying these technologies. These students now work diligently to make technology as effortless as possible so that their programs will be what will be used in the future. Gilbert discusses how when people are judged by a panel of others they tend to feel worse about themselves but, when dealing with computers people are only judged by one computer which tells them

computer had a math degree they were taught programming so that they could work on the

Computers were once humans. Men and women had the job of sitting at a desk so they could calculate numbers that would get astronauts into space. Katherine Johnson was famous for what she did and became.

 This really showed her passion as the ‘Director of Navy Programming Languages Group’.     In addition, Grace Hopper developed the first compiler for computer programming language. Throughout her life, all of her accomplishments had made her even more important than she was. For example, the website,The Famous People, says, “In 1969, Grace was awarded the first ‘Computer Science Man-of-the-Year award’ from ‘Data Processing Management Association.’”

In the condensed essay, “Getting Close to the Machine”, Ellen Ullman reflects how time becomes meaningless when one is engulfed in a new software program and the importance of coding to create a machine. As the young programmers, ones she hired, and herself work for three days and nights, living off of cheap take out, and not leaving the building, struggle to finish the AIDS software, her emotions begin to play a role. She is so involved with finishing this software that she doesn’t care about what she as accomplished until the software is complete. She says, “I have passed through a membrane where the real world and its uses no longer matter.” Time for her in this moment doesn’t matter because the real world doesn’t exist when she is coding;

She received the Naval Ordnance Development Award for her pioneering applications programming success on the Mark I, Mark II, and Mark III computers. Grace Hopper joined the U.S. Navy during World War II. She led the team that created the first computer language compiler, which led to the popular COBOL language. She joined the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, a part of the U.S. Naval Reserve) in 1943 and a year later was Lieutenant Hopper. After the war, Hopper remained with the Navy as a reserve officer. Soon enough, Hopper died in Virginia in

In a world that is currently dominated by computers, it’s hard to imagine what it was like before they were invented. Though computers only began having a major influence in the last 60 years, the idea for them was first conceived almost 200 years ago. This technology would not have been possible without the work of Ada Lovelace, who is considered one of the pioneers in the field of computer programming. She had a vision of the possible benefits and capabilities of a computing machine. Even though she would never see her vision become a reality, her legacy and work had a lasting impact on the future of technology. However, during her lifetime she experienced multiple setbacks in pursuing her education

Marjorie was the mathematician that set up an electronic digital computer in North Carolina College. It was one of the first of its kind at a minority college. She was both a mathematician and an educator. This computer helped advance technology in schools. It also helped her win awards.

Starting from 1964, she was the director of Software Programming for Project Apollo, and it was her coding that made the first lunar landing a reality. In the 1960’s, coding complex software was not as common as it is in the 21st century, which makes Hamilton’s largely error-free software all the more remarkable. Also, there was no other software which she could have used as a model: she had to start from scratch. During the landing phase, the lunar module’s computers started alarming because of an error in the system, almost cancelling the mission. Fortunately, Hamilton’s software allowed the system to restart and fix the problem, consequently making the landing possible (Ceruzzi). Even though the general public is relatively unfamiliar with her accomplishments, she has received several awards over the years; most remarkably, President Barack Obama awarded her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.

Grace Hopper loved math and her education. Grace Hopper studied math and physics at Vassar College. Then she went to Yale University and got her master’s degree in mathematics. She started to teach at Vassar College while studying at Yale University. Then she got her Ph.D. in mathematics. And she was of few women to earn search a degree like that. She had the best education and became a well-known person.

When she first saw the Mark I, she said, ““There was this large mass of machinery out there making a lot of racket,”” and ““It was all bare, all open, and very noisy”” (Isaacson, 2014). Hopper was dedicated to the Mark I project. She studied its blueprints for hours to understand how to run the computer correctly, and took 12 hour shifts to run and monitor it. She wrote the first computer programming manual which included the history of the Mark I and a programming guide for the computer (Isaacson,

Serial Processing: Programmers had to interact directly with the computer hardware, there was no OS. These computers used a console consisting of display lights, toggle switches, some form of input device, and a printer. Programs in machine code had to be loaded via the input device. If an error occurred in the program, the error condition was indicated by the lights. If the program has been executed, the output would appear on the printer.

1949 Von Neumann had just invented the first computer programming language. As we learned form Outliers this was a long and grueling process with many hours spent writing and changing cards to complete your program. Then two years later in 1951 Grace Hopper invented the first compiler. A compiler turns Von Neumann 's computer language into an easier form, there it can directly go into the computer without any manual work. This was amazing in the world of computer programming because of its speed and ease compared to the old language. It wasn 't until 1957 that a big change came. The first major language of computer programming was here, in the form of FORmula TRANslating system, in short FORTRAN. FORTAN was almost its own language itself for computer programmers allowing them to do things they never could have when programming. For Douglas this is an obvious advantage being born in the perfect time era. Then in 1958 John McCarthy invented a LISP processing language. What was special about this was there