Jo ππππ³οΈβπ
πΏπΆππΆ 
The patriarchy is the reason you know the names Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk, but you've never even once heard the name Evelyn Berezin.
Tessa (36of47) 
π³οΈββ§οΈ@LadyDragonfly Wow, I know something about the history of women in computers, but you're right, this is the first I've ever heard of her. I've heard of Dan Bricklin, who invented the spreadsheet. But never her.
Jonathan QuistI've been doing this computer stuff since the 70s. I didn't know her name either. I'm ashamed of that.
antoine π@LadyDragonfly This is sadly trueβ¦ There is still a great section about the awesome work of Evelyn Berezin in _Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing_ by @mkirschenbaum !
Matthew Kirschenbaum@antoinentl @LadyDragonfly thank you. I also wrote about her here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/12/20/when-we-fixate-technological-firsts-we-miss-real-story-innovation/
Jayne 
πͺπΊπ³οΈβπ@mkirschenbaum @antoinentl @LadyDragonfly
Here she is giving her oral history to the Computer History Museum...a long, but fascinating listen...
Oral History of Evelyn Berezin
Jasper π@antoinentl @LadyDragonfly @mkirschenbaum the part about all the stuff that wouldn't exist is hyperbolic, actually.
I'll have shut up about it, but intentionally being incorrect, seems unnecessary to me, and bugged me.
@jasper @antoinentl @mkirschenbaum stop the presses everyone, a man has arrived to dismiss the achievements of women.
@LadyDragonfly @antoinentl @mkirschenbaum for <X> invented <Y>, almost always, someone would have.
Like Dijkstras algorithm, it's pretty obvious, to someone competent hammering at the problem tbh.(which is fine) So is this.
I read the wikipedia page, it's impressive, but these inventions wouldah happened without her. I ain't doing your purity test.
@jasper @LadyDragonfly @antoinentl My dude. The history here is complex and nuanced, as real history often is. Iβve talked to the engineers who built the first commercial word processor at IBM. I spent a week in the archives at Microsoft. I interviewed Evelyn Berezin before her death. I then literally wrote the book on this. You are well out of your depth. https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674417076
Track Changes β Matthew G. Kirschenbaum
Writing in the digital age has been as messy as the inky rags in Gutenberg's shop or the molten lead of a Linotype machine. Matthew Kirschenbaum examines how creative authorship came to coexist with the computer revolution. Who were the early adopters, and what made others anxious? Was word processing just a better typewriter, or something more?
@mkirschenbaum @jasper @antoinentl
"I read the Wikipedia page"
"I literally wrote the book on this"
π
Zitrone@LadyDragonfly well, @jasper, this post was about patriachy, not inventions that would have come to light anyways, right? and usually the ones being first, get the credits, like j.b.lindsay for the light-bulb ;) wich is a good example since soo many people invented it.
and (this probably doesnt apply to the both of you but) maybe stop hailing people at all? especially those who didnt even invent anything, like that scottish fruit business dude?
and (this probably doesnt apply to the both of you but) maybe stop hailing people at all? especially those who didnt even invent anything, like that scottish fruit business dude?
AccordionBruce@mkirschenbaum @jasper @LadyDragonfly @antoinentl
That reply put your book on hold for me at the #VancouverPublicLibrary π
History is almost always richer the more we look at the folks who arenβt the big leaders and crowd pleasers
And object history is fun
I just bought @mwicharyβs #ShiftHappens book on keyboards
Yours fits right next to Craig Robertsonβs The Filing Cabinet ποΈ in an office technologist bookshelf
SteveBologna
StoneAI@jasper @LadyDragonfly @antoinentl @mkirschenbaum
hmm... that's like saying everything is pretty obvious in hindsight...
Sherri W (SyntaxSeed)@jasper @antoinentl @LadyDragonfly @mkirschenbaum
One can say "without this foundation stone we wouldn't have this pyramid" and it doesn't mean we wouldn't have any version of any pyramid ever.
We have our current iteration of these things because of her invention. It doesn't mean we wouldn't have arrived at those destinations by another route eventually. And it doesn't detract from the value & importance of that foundation stone for our current reality.
@jasper @antoinentl @LadyDragonfly @mkirschenbaum
Otherwise no one has ever done anything of value because in a different timeline someone else did it instead. We don't discuss reality that way, so why nitpick about it here.
Gordon J Holtslander
Stefan Tilkov@LadyDragonfly Fascinating person indeed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Berezin
Aaron Toponce βοΈ
@LadyDragonfly I suggest capitalism as another reason we haven't heard of her.
ljΒ·rk@LadyDragonfly Oh, so she's the one to blame when I need to open a docx file and cannot use Markdown or TeX? :-p
/s obviously
ChuS ζ°΄@LadyDragonfly the "Mileva MariΔ" effect
Ruth
defelI heard her name.
Also Radia Perlman (Spanning Tree Protocol), Lorinda Cherry (Unix Pioneer), Gladys West (Co-Inventor of GPS), Annie Easley (Computer & Rocket Scientist), Frances Spence, Susan Headley (Phreaker/Hacker), Katie Hafner, Hedy Lamar, Margaret Hamilton, Grace Hopper, Dorothy McEwen Kildall, Betty Holberton, Cynthia Dwork, Jean Bartik, Jude Milhon, Jeannette Wing, Barbara Liskov, Kathleen Booth, Megan Smith, Elizabeth Jocelyn "Jake" Feinler, Pamela Hardt-English and Sophie Wilson.
Denis 
@dfl Is there a book about all the achievements of these women, like we have for males ? I only have heard of 3 of them 
My partner and I created this list after she faced an issue at work: The meeting rooms were all named after men, and when she suggested adding women's names, the response was "There are no relevant women in IT". π€¦
At this time we knew Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper, so we began compiling this list of women in tech.
Since you asked for resources:
One book on my to-read list is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broad_Band
There is also a Women in Tech Hall of Fame: https://witi.com/halloffame/
Benno 
@benno
Oh wow! Sounds like wild times :D
From the linked article:
"There was a serious problem: some rogue genius had discovered that the spark emitted by the new cheap, disposable piezo-electric cigarette lighters was, at 1KV, powerful enough to persuade the elecronic one-armed bandits to dish out their winnings." π³
And to continue, here are some of my personal favs :)
1οΈβ£: Everyone knows Kevin Mitnick, but who knows Susan Headley aka Suzy Thunder who never got caught?
- https://www.theverge.com/c/22889425/susy-thunder-headley-hackers-phone-phreakers-claire-evans
- https://hackcur.io/trashing-the-phone-company-with-suzy-thunder/
2οΈβ£: An interview featuring Elizabeth 'Jake' Feinler discussing her role at the NIC of ArpaNet.
https://ethw.org/Oral-History:Elizabeth_%22Jake%22_Feinler
3οΈβ£: Jude Milhon aka St. Jude, who coined the term "CyberPunk." and is well-known for her quote, "Girls need modems!"
Oh wow, I just realised that Claire L. Evans ( @theuniverse ) who wrote the book "Broad Band" is the same person who wrote the article about Suzy Thunder above! π
Thanks for that!
Heurism@LadyDragonfly I did a paper on Ms. Berezin way way way back in grad school.
AlisonW βΏπ³οΈβπβΎοΈ@LadyDragonfly
Ooh, interesting. I designed & built the first screen-based word processor for Olivetti in 1978 but hadn't heard of her work before today.
Ooh, interesting. I designed & built the first screen-based word processor for Olivetti in 1978 but hadn't heard of her work before today.
bouriquet@LadyDragonfly Maybe she set the foundations for the device but letβs not forget that the Wang 1200 brought word processing into reality for offices.
Todd Vierling 
@LadyDragonfly
And she is in great company with the likes of Radia Perlman, Carol Shaw, Frances Allen, Grace Hopper, and many more women who deserve to be at least geeky-household names.
Godspeed, Evelyn Berezin.
Eoin@ToddVierling @LadyDragonfly Not forgetting the renaissance woman Hedy Lamarr:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr#inventor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr#inventor
Martha Howell@LadyDragonfly
I was just telling my incredulous niece how we had to retype a paper in college from the point where we added or removed a footnote.
I was just telling my incredulous niece how we had to retype a paper in college from the point where we added or removed a footnote.
RevJeber@MHowell @LadyDragonfly
The whole concept of "computing" and "computer" started with (primarily) women who did their computations on paper with pencils.
The whole concept of "computing" and "computer" started with (primarily) women who did their computations on paper with pencils.
Pierre Gab@LadyDragonfly Dennis Ritchie, Lorinda Cherry, Ken Thompson, Brian Kernighan, I feel like being well-known by the general public or even by IT guys doesn't really depend on building awesome stuff, but rather on being at the top of extremely profitable companies.
You are right about women getting way less spotlight of course, but Musk, Jobs and Gates are not who you should be comparing to.
I'm glad I learned about Evelyn Berezin, thanks!
You are right about women getting way less spotlight of course, but Musk, Jobs and Gates are not who you should be comparing to.
I'm glad I learned about Evelyn Berezin, thanks!
Dennis Ritchie died a multimillionaire who was written about in Forbes.
Evelyn Berezin once had a job offer working for the New York Stock Exchange retracted because she was a woman, despite being one of the only people on the planet at the time qualified to do the job.
The patriarchy rewards the achievements of men with wealth, power, and fame, at the same time it dismisses the achievements of women as inconsequential, unimportant, and unmarketable.
Lilyshome@LadyDragonfly @rpigab and the GOP are caught up in Cancel Women Culture and to hell with little girls.
Bonkers@LadyDragonfly it's truly sad that the original author is almost forgotten. But the statement is totally wrong. Someone else would build a word processor some time later. Probably it would have different keyboard shortcuts (I wonder which of those Evelyn created are used up to date)
@bonkers stop the presses everyone, a man has arrived to dismiss the achievements of women.
@LadyDragonfly huh? I'm all for great achievements of women. But also pointing out the incorrect statement on the picture.
T Alex Beamish@LadyDragonfly Cool. I worked at AES Data on their third generation word processing product starting in '77, and never heard of her.
Thomas Lemarchand@LadyDragonfly I don't think that's true. Dennis Ritchie died the same week than Steve Jobs. He invented C and Unix, the two key technologies used to build every modern technology that we know today and still use (notably all operating systems, including Windows, Mac OS, Linux, ios, Android ...). He is a man, and most people never head of him. The big difference between your list of unimportant men and him : they are rich, he was not.
@thomas
The patriarchy rewards the achievements of men with wealth, power, and fame at the exact same time that it dismisses the achievements of women as inconsequential, incidental, and forgettable.
Dennis Ritchie died a multimillionaire who was written about in Forbes. Evelyn Berezin literally had a job offer working for the New York Stock Exchange retracted after they found out she was a woman, despite being the only person on the planet qualified to do that job.
Willow!Curious how big the size of the first word processing software was, it must have been a hundred kilobytes at most given the hardware capacity at the time.
When I first used a computer it came on a single 1.41 MB floppy disk and it ran directly off it.
kaiserkiwi 
@LadyDragonfly @Natanox I hate this.
I hear so much about women in tech since I joined Mastodon. Why now? Why not the last 33 years? My kid will definitely know these names.
Xerz π@LadyDragonfly add Adele Goldberg to the list while at it! 
Another largely unknown female scientist is Eunice Foote who, in 1856, was the first scientist to conclude that certain gases warmed when exposed to sunlight, and that rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels would change atmospheric temperature and could affect climate, i.e. climate change.
Previously, John Tyndall had been recognised by scientists as the first person to experimentally show the mechanism of the greenhouse effect involving infrared radiation.
brewdog1950
J$@LadyDragonfly Are you suggesting she should be on the post time machine invention hit list?
Tom@LadyDragonfly Was Berezinβs Data Secretary a word processor in ways that the IBM MT/ST was not?