| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Jon Von Neumann (1903-1957) | First went to work at Princeton University as one of the original six professors in their School of Mathematics. He worked on the "Manhattan Project" to build the first atomic bomb. In 1945, he described a computer as having a central processing unit, a memory section and a connection between them to use and store data. All modern PCs operate in about the same way today. |
| Howard Aiken (1900-1973) | Born in Indianapolis, he earned his engineering and physics degrees before he began teaching at Harvard. His Mark 1 design included several modified, punched card tabulators of the type IBM made. The Mark 1 was built at the IBM plant in Endicott, New York and assembled at Harvard. Aiken often said, "I am a simple man and I want simple answers." Harvard's Aiken Computation Laboratory is named in his honor. |
| Grace Hopper (1906-?) | She earned mathematics degrees from Vassar College and Yale before joining the U.S. Navy in 1943. After being assigned to Aiken's Mark 1 project, she became one of the world's first programmers and soon compiled the first manual for computer subroutines. Using her manual, several small subroutines which had been checked for errors could be combined to make an error-free computer program. Later she wrote the Manual of Operations for the Mark 1 and worked on the UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer). She and five others met at the University of Pennsylvania in 1959 to discuss the lack of a business computer language. COBOL (Computer Business Oriented Language), also the most popular "business" language was based on Grace Hopper's 1957 Flowmatic language. She created the term "debug". Before she retired in 1986, "Amazing Grace" was appointed Rear Admiral Hopper, the highest ranking woman in the U.S. Navy. Hopper has always encouraged people to be innovative by saying, "It is easier to apologize than to get permission." |
| John Backus (1924-still living) | He went to work in 1950 at IBM as a programmer and developed the first system to translate near-English instructions into machine language. He called it FORTAN (Formula Translation). FORTAN utilized the language of algebra, plus some rules of grammar and was designed for scientists and engineers who used mathematical formulas. Though the developement took three years, it was introduced in 1957. |
| Steven Jobs (1955-still living) and Stephen Wozniak (1950-still living) | Both found a common interest in computers through meetings at the Homebrew Computer Club. Wozniak helped organize the club in 1975 and it is considered to be the first PC "Users Group". Together they designed and assembled the Apple 1 in Job's garage in 1976. To get money to market the computer, Jobs sold his Volkswagon and Wozniak sold his Hewlett-Packard calculator, and together they sold their first computer that had no keyboard for $666.00. From the profits of the Apple 1, they were able to finance their next computer, the Apple 2. Introduced in 1977, the Apple 2 allowed the average person to afford to own and use a PC for the first time. Both left the company in 1985 to pursue other opportunities. For Wozniak, it gave him the chance to go back to college and earn his BS degree in computer science. |
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