“Which original ENIAC programmer helped develop COBOL and Fortran?“

For all those computer geeks out there who will spend yet another Valentine’s Day in the presence of a computer rather than a significant other, it’s time to change the game. Toss off the shackles of this Hallmark-addled so-called holiday, and celebrate a far more important and entertaining occasion: ENIAC Eve, a compu-centric holiday for all the technophiles of the world.

On Feb. 15, 1946, the world’s first programmable electronic computer—the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC)—was unveiled at the University of Pennsylvania. And so, we christen the day before as ENIAC Eve, an anniversary of the last night the world did not formally know the joys and wonders of programmable electronic computing…

…A half-dozen women are responsible for the bulk of ENIAC’s programming: Fran Bilas, Betty Jennings (later known as Jean Bartik), Ruth Lichterman, Kay McNulty, Betty Snyder (later known as Betty Holberton), and Marlyn Wescoff. Their work on ENIAC earned each of them a place in the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame.

If ENIAC is the direct ancestor of all modern computers, then these women are the intellectual and professional forerunners of all modern programmers. The debt we owe some of these women doesn’t stop there, however, as at least one of them pioneered software advances still in use today.

This particular ENIAC programmer went on to develop the technical standards that led to the creation of both the COBOL and Fortran programming languages.