Where does this come from, and can I check it?

Kay McNulty, Betty Jennings, Betty Snyder, Marlyn Wescoff, Fran Bilas, and Ruth Lichterman wired ENIAC. The figure is taken from Smithsonian Magazine, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.

Is this really a technology fact?

Yes. It sits on the Technology shelf, one of 1,090 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.

What else can I read about it?

The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.

Mondo Knows Facts

Six women programmed the ENIAC computer without programming manuals

Kay McNulty, Betty Jennings, Betty Snyder, Marlyn Wescoff, Fran Bilas, and Ruth Lichterman wired ENIAC

In 1945, six female mathematicians were hired by the United States Army to program the electronic ENIAC computer. Working without existing programming languages or manuals, they analyzed differential equations and manually configured cables, patch panels, and switches to set up calculations. Their contributions to computer software engineering were publicly recognized decades later.

Where this comes from

Smithsonian Magazine

Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.

Go further

Technology trivia History trivia

More facts like this

ENIAC was the first general-purpose electronic computerCompleted in 1945, ENIAC used thousands of vacuum tubes to calculate artillery firing tables Grace Hopper created the first compiler for a programming languageIn 1952 Grace Hopper developed A-0 to translate human-readable code into computer machine instructions FORTRAN was the first widely used high-level programming languageJohn Backus and IBM introduced Fortran in 1957 to simplify mathematical computing UNIVAC I correctly predicted the 1952 US presidential election outcomeCBS News used the mainframe computer to forecast Dwight Eisenhower's landslide victory Magnetic core memory served as main RAM for computers from the 1950s to 1970sTiny ferrite rings threaded on wire grids stored magnetic bits non-volatilesly Magnetic tape was introduced for computer data storage on the UNIVAC I in 1951UNISERVO tape drives replaced heavy punched card stacks with flexible magnetic media

Tags: eniac, women-in-stem, programming

Six women programmed the ENIAC computer without programming manuals: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?: Kay McNulty, Betty Jennings, Betty Snyder, Marlyn Wescoff, Fran Bilas, and Ruth Lichterman wired ENIAC. The figure is taken from Smithsonian Magazine, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a technology fact?: Yes. It sits on the Technology shelf, one of 1,090 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?: The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.