Lynn Conway, electricial engineer and computer scientist, co-architect of the VLSI design revolution, and transgender activist, was born #OTD in 1938.
She invented Dynamic Instruction Scheduling at IBM, but IBM fired her when they learned she was transitioning.
Photo: Lynn Conway
Lynn Conway has a very detailed bio page at the University of Michigan, where she tells her own story in her own words.
✊ . And before, she conceived my first computer: the 1980 Acorn ATOM, which could run inlined 6502 assembly in its BASIC programs! 
@mcnees This was surprisingly out of character for the IBM that I worked with and for from 1974 onwards, they had and remained always on the side of progressives, they had the largest number of women, African American, and other minorities in meaningful positions. So reading about this was very disappointing.
Here is the conclusion of the IBM side. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremyalicandri/2020/11/18/ibm-apologizes-for-firing-computer-pioneer/?sh=359185d667d5
@EVDHmn @erisianlib @mcnees @diazona Microsoft Edge has a built-in VPN, assuming you are on Windows you can use it for free at least from watching online. Of course, you might not trust Microsoft, but if you are on Windows they would have pretty much everything else anyway.
FYI, I'm not an MS or Edge fanboy but I use #Win11 and Edge.
@EVDHmn @erisianlib @mcnees @diazona Aside from newspaper and TV coverage, most IBM Employees at the time would have never heard. Punch cards were the lingua franca of data transfer and there was no company wide networking in 1968.
IBM did have a form of internal TV network in the 1970's and it was an early pioneer of satellite broadcasting for education, it's hard to understand how anyone outside of Lynn Conway's office would have known.
@EVDHmn @erisianlib @mcnees @diazona Also, there are 156 citations on the Wikipedia entry, none are from 1968-9, and since I do music research as part time gig these days, I checked News papers from that period 1968-69 there were no mentions of a Lynn Conway and IBM at all.
I'm not trying to defend IBM, it did wrong. However, as a life long progressive, and former IBM Executive and 22-year employee I'd never heard of this.
It's easy to forget how isolated communities used to be.
@mcnees Holy shit she co-wrote Introduction to VLSI Systems! I think I have that book lying around somewhere! Either that or it ended up in my parents' "book hoard donate pile"
And she also worked for DARPA...
@mcnees
One time I was sharing a flat with a fellow trans leftists. I and a flatmate were both part of the defence sector. I was a contractor, she was MoD. While reading the news I asked "Why do you work for them?"
She responded: "I'm a tranny, nobody else would hire me."
At the time I felt a pull in two different directions. At first, I agreed. To become a defence contractor was the only position I could find as an electronics engineer that didn't flat-out refuse to consider me. However, the third flatmate had managed to leave the tech sector to work part-time at a homelessness charity. I met trans bouncers, accountants, delivery drivers, fundraisers, electricians, union reps, social workers, massage therapists, bartenders! It's specifically the engineering sector which has this cycle.
A common thing with queer "skilled" labour is to turn to state capital for employment. The state cannot be decoupled from the active site of struggle that is the recognition of rights of oppressed people, so long as they are "productive." For skilled labour like engineering, individual workers have more "recognised" bargaining power. To get the expertise required for "skilled" labour also tends to imply privilege in other areas. The casualisation of engineering is changing this.
The nonunionised private sector interfaces this active struggle after the fact through legislation, law, and organic cultural shifts. They also have the lack of accountability to selectively flout our rights. The state has none of these 'privileges.' So long as the bourgeoisie maintains its illusion of democracy, it has to claim to represent us for the sake of coopting revolutionary struggle. This has a ripple effect on the military-industrial complex. Lockheed and Rolls Royce can hypocritically claim progressiveness while the multitudinous contractors they employ tend to betray this. They also get to do a bit of pinkwashing!
what a shitty company to do such a thing.
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