Computer History Museum Publishes Memories of the Programmer for NASA's Moon Missions (computerhistory.org) 45
This week Silicon Valley's Computer History Museum posted a PDF transcript (and video excerpts) from an interview with 81-year-old Margaret Hamilton, the programmer/systems designer who in the 1960s became director of the Software Engineering Division at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory which developed the on-board flight software for NASA's Apollo program. Prior to that Hamilton had worked on software to detect an airplane's radar signature, but thought, "You know, 'I guess I should delay graduate school again because I'd like to work on this program that puts all these men on the Moon....'"
"There was always one thing that stood out in my mind, being in the onboard flight software, was that it was 'man rated,' meaning if it didn't work a person's life was at stake if not over. That was always uppermost in my mind and probably many others as well."
Interestingly, Hamilton had originally received two job offers from the Apollo Space Program, and had told them to flip a coin to settle it. ("The other job had to do with support systems. It was software, but it wasn't the onboard flight software.") But what's fascinating is the interview's glimpses at some of the earliest days of the programming profession: There was all these engineers, okay? Hardware engineers, aeronautical engineers and all this, a lot of them out of MIT... But the whole idea of software and programming...? Dick Battin, Dr. Battin, when they told him that they were going to be responsible for the software...he went home to his wife and said he was going to be in charge of software and he thought it was some soft clothing...
Hamilton also remembers in college taking a summer job as a student actuary at Travelers Insurance in the mid-1950s, and "all of a sudden one day word was going around Travelers that there were these new things out there called computers that were going to take away all of their jobs... Pretty soon they wouldn't have jobs. And so everybody was talking about it. They were scared they wouldn't have a way to make a living.
"But, of course, it ended up being more jobs were created with the computers than there were...."
Hamilton's story about Apollo 8 is amazing...
"There was always one thing that stood out in my mind, being in the onboard flight software, was that it was 'man rated,' meaning if it didn't work a person's life was at stake if not over. That was always uppermost in my mind and probably many others as well."
Interestingly, Hamilton had originally received two job offers from the Apollo Space Program, and had told them to flip a coin to settle it. ("The other job had to do with support systems. It was software, but it wasn't the onboard flight software.") But what's fascinating is the interview's glimpses at some of the earliest days of the programming profession: There was all these engineers, okay? Hardware engineers, aeronautical engineers and all this, a lot of them out of MIT... But the whole idea of software and programming...? Dick Battin, Dr. Battin, when they told him that they were going to be responsible for the software...he went home to his wife and said he was going to be in charge of software and he thought it was some soft clothing...
Hamilton also remembers in college taking a summer job as a student actuary at Travelers Insurance in the mid-1950s, and "all of a sudden one day word was going around Travelers that there were these new things out there called computers that were going to take away all of their jobs... Pretty soon they wouldn't have jobs. And so everybody was talking about it. They were scared they wouldn't have a way to make a living.
"But, of course, it ended up being more jobs were created with the computers than there were...."
Hamilton's story about Apollo 8 is amazing...
New Math? (Score:2)
She was born in 1936 - how does that make her 81?
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Oral History of Margaret Hamilton Interviewed by: David C. Brock Recorded April 13, 2017 Boston, MA
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Wait... READ the ARTICLE?!
What's Slashdot coming to?
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Were you born an asshole or was it a lifestyle choice?
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Probably raised to be one. I predicted before scrolling down to the comments that someone would be disparaging. No one would have said that about a male software engineer working on Apollo. But because it's a woman someone feels they need to be an ass; you see it all over. Someone not white and male is clearly in the position only for quotas, they fail to see the extra set of hurdles that others have to jump through.
And yes, not just an Apollo software designers, but the LEAD designer. Much of this happ
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Cool! (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's pretty cool. There were a lot of people working on all the details of the Apollo program. It's great to get interviews with them while they're still alive to tell the stories!
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I would say that the person writing the guidance software for Apollo would be worth listening to regardless of sex.
But then, that would be news for nerds, something that very clearly you are not, since you don't seem to have any interest.
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Not quite what your point is. If it is "here is another book about the Apollo program software development that you might like", yes, cool. For what it's worth, Eyles has a paper on the LEM computer and its problems available on the web: https://www.doneyles.com/LM/Ta... [doneyles.com]
On the other hand, if your point is to say "there's this one guy who wrote a book about his work on Apollo software, and since clearly nobody else could worked on the project, we don't need to hear from Margaret Hamilton": no, there were man
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Guidance [Re: Cool!] (Score:2)
There were two Apollo Guidance Computers flown on each mission, one in the Command Module and one in the Lunar Module. The people you list all worked on software for the Lunar Module computer. According to her bio [caltech.edu], after Apollo 8, Hamilton "was the person in charge of all Command Module software". We are talking about different things.
In any case, I am puzzled here. You are making an incredibly detailed quibble about phraseology: you're saying "oh, just because she wrote software for the Apollo Guidance Co
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There were two Apollo Guidance Computers flown on each mission, one in the Command Module and one in the Lunar Module. The people you list all worked on software for the Lunar Module computer. According to her bio [caltech.edu], after Apollo 8, Hamilton "was the person in charge of all Command Module software". We are talking about different things.
I'm aware of all these things but I fail to see the relevance for this discussion. She almost certainly didn't write guidance code for the CSM computer *either*, since there's no positive claim made by her or by any literature that she did, and in any case, Apollo 8 already had to have that CSM code for guidance -- it was fully employed during this lunar orbital mission, including the autonomous sextant navigation, so it had to have been completed by then, both in design and in implementation, so her taking
Yeah but [Re:Guidance [Re: Cool!]] (Score:2)
if you are a white male then your contributions are not remembered or of value
Do you have no quibbles about that statement?
I didn't react to the quoted statement in any way whatsoever, so I'm not sure what this leading question is supposed to mean.
And that's exactly the point: you didn't react in any way. When given a chance to be pedantic by correcting a statement that is absurd, stupid, and misogynistic... and was the actual topic of the discussion thread: you pass. When given a chance to correct a minor point in order to denigrate women... you jump on it and keep on jumping on it.
Yeah, your priorities are clear.
You jump up out out of the woodwork when you can devalue the contributions of a woman
I did no such thing,
You did precisely that. You are quibbling about a minor point. Deny it as you like to do, she was in charge of the software for the Apoll
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And that's exactly the point: you didn't react in any way.
Because you already did, so it would have been pointless for me to reiterate your valid points.
Deny it as you like to do, she was in charge of the software for the Apollo program.
I've never denied that. Please find my comment where I've denied that. I'm *really* interested where you can find one.
Your yeahbutting has been "yeah but a lot of the software was from before she was in charge" ... "yeah but she didn't write code for the lunar module" ... "yeah but only in charge after Apollo 8 and that means she wasn't in charge during Apollo 8 which is the only mission I care about"
The claim I reacted to wasn't that "she was in charge" -- the claim was very specifically that "she wrote guidance software". If you can't distinguish two such significantly different claims (and how an argument against one of them is NOT an argument against the other one), or can distinguish them
More yeahbuttery [Re:Yeah but] (Score:2)
I refer to your minor quibble as a minor quibble because it was utterly irrelevant to the point. I could have just as easily have said "I would say that the person who was in charge of software on the command module for the Apollo program after Apollo 8 would be worth listening to regardless of sex", which would be a lot wordier but still good. Your point was an irrelevancy.
And you have zero support, other than your say-so, for your assertion that she didn't write guidance software. The closest you've come
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I could have just as easily have said "I would say that the person who was in charge of software on the command module for the Apollo program after Apollo 8 would be worth listening to regardless of sex", which would be a lot wordier but still good.
...then why didn't you say *that*? Was it laziness?
And you have zero support, other than your say-so, for your assertion that she didn't write guidance software.
But I've already supported that claim: She has never made that claim about herself in the place, and neither has any of the literature on the topic. So why would anyone make up shit like this?
The burden of proof when making positive historical claims such as "Bill Gates wrote MSVC" is on the person making that claim. If I say "wait a minute; that doesn't make any sense -- what source supports that claim that Gates contributed source code to MSVC?", it's no
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Re: How very virtuous of them (Score:2)
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Wut? How is an interview with one of the most important computing pioneers of her era "virtue signaling".
Half this damn website call themselves a term she coined, "Software engineer". And her techniques for building resiliance in mission critical systems still form the backbone of a lot of engineering in medical, nuclear, and aerospace systems. Theres a reason she's one of the most decorated (Hell she even has a Medal of Freedom) coders of all time.
Virtue signaling my arse.
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Why are you people so obsessed with the fact that she's a woman?
Fuck me, conservatives are weird sometimes.
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I don't like it that there is a 2-1 bias for women applying to faculty jobs in the US, that NASA are reserving seats for women to go to the moon, that code.org pays teachers to exclude boys from coding classes, that the UN spend our money on a day against violence against women - while men die violently FIVE TIMES as often as women, etc etc etc.
Want equality ? THEN CALL OUT SEXISM.
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Sadly this is illustrative of the things women still face in tech. If any of their achievements are acknowledged it's called virtue signalling, and any position they attain is assumed to have been part of some quota.
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What did they lie about?
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Maybe it's because they keep lying with movies like "Hidden Figures" or popularizing engineers over other engineers because of what's between their legs rather than their contributions? Remember when researchers took a photo of a black hole for the first time and a photo of a female engineer (Katie Bouman) being gleeful over the photo was the most popular story? It was covered by the news and social media "this is the woman who wrote the algorithm that let us see this black hole!" In reality a nerdy-looking
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I wouldn't say Hidden Figures was lying. All these dramas based on historical events embellish the stories, regardless of if it's a man or a woman.
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Wut? How is an interview with one of the most important computing pioneers of her era "virtue signaling".
It is sad. But I can kind of see where he is coming from. When I read the headline, a voice in my head said "I'll bet it is a woman, and that's why we are hearing the story". I don't like that voice, but it reflects how the media has become.
But who cares what motivated the writer? It is pointless to speculate, and the story is interesting anyhow, man, woman, non-binary, or small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.
BTW, last century, women were far more common in software and mathem
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It is the lazy, virtue signalling, lame, "Look at this woman ! Doing engineering !" media I am calling out for their SEXISM.
Want equality ? THEN STOP SEXISM.
For the hard core engineer (Score:2)
It is hard to believe these days what they achieved with such primitive hardware. Today we have pocket devices that could far outperform everything NASA had back then but it shows you what proper engineering can do. (pro tip: don't waste 90% of your compute power on meaningless graphics displays).
For those interested I strongly recommend this video [youtube.com] on the Apollo guidance computer.
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How many software project failures have there been that failed because of scope creep and poor specifications? I'd venture it would be a high percentage.
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My father worked on the Saturn V guidance computer (more properly, the LVDC, the Launch Vehicle Digital Computer). IBM built it, and Dad's group at NASA built a hardware-in-the-loop simulation to flight-certify it. He's told me stories about the weird ways that computer worked.
They also figured out a way to run an LVDC to just before the TLI burn (Trans Lunar Injection, the engine firing that took them from Earth orbit and put them on the path to the Moon) and halt it. After launch, when the tracking statio
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CuriousMarc on YouTube documented a restoration of a real Apollo Guidance Computer - https://www.youtube.com/playli... [youtube.com]
It's a very in-depth look at an unusual and cool machine.
Full Interview Video (Score:4, Informative)
The full video interview is here [youtube.com].