Betty Holberton

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Born in Philadelphia in 1917 as Frances Elizabeth Snyder Holberton, the [left-handed] and [cross-eyed] young girl grew up [ridicule]d by her classmates. Her parents and grandparents, both [astronomy|astronomer]s, encouraged her to study [mathematics] but a [University of Pennsylvania] math professor discouraged her, saying that women should be [barefoot and pregnant|home raising children]. She majored in English and journalism instead, and worked for the [Farm Journal] compiling economics [statistics].

When men were pressed into military service at the beginning of [World War II], the [Army] recruited female mathematicians - Holberton among them - to compute [ballistics] trajectories. The women were called "computers" and classified as sub-professionals as they worked on [equation]s that took more than 30 hours to solve. In an effort to speed up [calculation]s, the Army sponsored a project to create a digital [computer]. Holberton and five other women were chosen to develop the [ENIAC], and despite a lack of manuals they taught themselves [computer programming|to program]. Holberton's responsibility was the central unit of ENIAC, and the group completed the project in 1946. <P> Holberton left [Aberdeen Proving Ground] in 1947, and joined the Eckert-Mauchly Electronic Control Company to work on the development of [UNIVAC]; she later said her design of the UNIVAC 1's instruction code and C-10 code was her best accomplishment. She played an active role in the design of [COBOL] and [FORTRAN], working at the [National Institute of Standards and Technology|National Bureau of Standards] until her retirement in 1983. In 1997, the [Association for Women in Computing] honored her with its [Ada Lovelace] Award; that same year she was inducted into the WITI Hall of Fame by [Women In Technology International]. Renowned programmer [Grace Hopper] said that the [pioneer]ing Holberton was the best programmer she had ever known. <P> Betty Holberton died on [December 8, 2001] at an [assisted living] home in [Rockville, MD]. She had [diabetes] and had also suffered a stroke, but was survived by her husband of 51 years and their two daughters. <P> Sources
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22998-2001Dec10.html
http://www.uri.edu/personal/csul7234/bettyholberton1.html
http://www.witi.com/center/witimuseum/womeninsciencet/1997/062197.shtml