Scott EllisJun 14, 2024
lj·rk

My #CompSci lecturers often dropped the names of inventors. But only if they were men. We talked about Gordon Moore, obviously Turing 🏳️‍🌈 was mentioned, about Don Knuth, about Chomsky etc.

But when we discussed the #ARM architecture, we never talked about the inventor *Sophie Wilson*. We also never talked about *Mary Ann Horton*, despite her work on `vi` and `terminfo` -- but of course we mentioned Bill Joy. We discussed the Spanning Tree Protocol, but not its inventor *Radia Perlman*. We have the whole field of #SoftwareEngineering, but who coined the term? *Margaret Hamilton*. We mentioned the ENIAC and v. Neumann, but failed to talk about *Adele Goldstine*. We discussed the origins of #OOP and #Smalltalk but ignored *Adele Goldberg*. We programmed in #Assembly but never talked about the woman who wrote the first #Assembler, *Kathleen Booth*. And don't get me started on #Safari and our sweet @lisamelton <3 Or any of the (incomplete list) of *Ida Rhodes, Carol Shaw, Shafi Goldwasser, Edith Clarke, Annie Easley, Joyce Little*, ...

And today? Let's talk about our favorite trans woman CPU designer, Lynn Conway.

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Jun 14, 2024 at 10:59amWeb
Show threadlj·rkJun 14, 2024

Lynn developed "generalized dynamic instruction dispatch" for IBM in 1966. 2 years later she was kicked out, just after Robert Tomasulo published the "Tomasulo Algorithm" for out-of-order execution of floating point instructions, utilizing Lynn's work. Everyone knows Tomasulo (and he did great work, mind you!), but no-one knows Lynn.

Later, in technical compsci, you may stumble upon highly integrated circuits, everyone there knows #VLSI, but not the inventor, our dear Dr. Conway.

Her story, her struggle against IBM who took decades to apologize to her for her mistreatment. She transitioned in darker times and pioneered not "only" in compsci. She was what many would call "greater than life". She died a few days ago.

Today, let's remember Lynn 🏳️‍⚧️, tomorrow we'll fight on ✊

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Show threadWolfgangJun 14, 2024

@ljrk Sally Floyd, who did pioneering work in Internet congestion control.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Floyd

Sally Floyd - Wikipedia

Show threadDr. SobekJun 14, 2024
@ljrk Holy shit, Out of Order execution is based off her work ? What’s the share of contribution in the seminal paper between her and Tomasulo ?
Show threadlj·rkJun 14, 2024

@Sobex Jup. Tomasulo himself did original work in his paper indeed and I wouldn't steal any credit from him, but nowadays multiple-issue OoO execution based on both Tomasulo's and Conway's work in roughly the same share is what's actually utilized. The name of Conway is usually dropped and both concepts (register renaming etc. and multiple-issue) subsumed under one, effectively erasing Conway's work. If it isn't then multiple-issue is often erroneously attributed to Yale Patt.

There's an interesting discussion going on since '12 on WP around that if you want to dive down that rabbit hole :'D

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AOut-of-order_execution#Lynn_Conway

Talk:Out-of-order execution - Wikipedia

Show threadDavid J. AtkinsonJun 14, 2024
@ljrk I met Lynn Conway two times when she was at Univ of Michigan. Brilliant person!
Show threadlj·rkJun 14, 2024
@meltedcheese I'm slightly envious!
Show threadZoë BladeJun 19, 2024
@ljrk She was one of those nice people you could just cold e-mail or say hi on social media and she'd reply enthusiastically. It's not too late to gently pester some of your other idols! 😊
Show threadlj·rkJun 19, 2024

@zoeblade Uhhh, it is quite ironic that you are writing this when I simply adore your musical work :3

I didn't you were on the Fediverse!! So this is a "hi" from me 0:-)

But mostly I'm just far too shy to cold message someone, and most often they're far away anyway :~

Show threadZoë BladeJul 1, 2024

@ljrk Well in this case that's not pestering anyway. 😄 Thank you, and hello!

Yeah, being shy doesn't help... It's like, compared to my partner, my "superpower" is simply having the chutzpah to socialise with people online. At least then the distance isn't a problem!

Show threadlj·rkJul 1, 2024

@zoeblade 👋

Yup ... ironically I don't have a problem to shout out my thoughts to the general public or to reply to people if there's a specific topic. But... reaching out to someone, one individual? That's just making me freeze up :'D

Thank you for your words! :3

Show threadEliot LashJun 14, 2024

@ljrk Shout out to the original ENIAC programming team: Kay McNulty, Betty Jennings, Betty Snyder, Marlyn Wescoff, Fran Bilas and Ruth Lichterman.

I watched some interviews with them at the Computer History Museum. This doc also looks cool:
https://eniacprogrammers.org/

I have heard that some black women were also involved with this project but sadly this has not been well documented and information about them may have been lost in the historical record.

ENIAC Programmers Project

In 1946 six brilliant young women programmed ENIAC, the first digital computer, a secret WWII US Army project. Yet when the ENIAC was unveiled to the public, the women were never introduced and remained invisible to history. Kathy Kleiman produced the documentary The Computers to tell their story.

ENIAC Programmers Project
Show threadEliot LashJun 15, 2024

@ljrk Also shout out to Klára Dán von Neumann (John von Neumann's wife) also considered to be one of the first programmers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kl%C3%A1ra_D%C3%A1n_von_Neumann

She was Head of the Statistical Computing Group at Princeton, and worked at Los Alamos laboratory. She programmed the MANIAC I and ENIAC and coded the first monte carlo simulation.

The Lost Women of Science podcast devoted an entire season to her, I've been meaning to get around to finishing it: https://www.lostwomenofscience.org/season-2

Klára Dán von Neumann - Wikipedia

Show threadcowboybanjobiker 🤠🪕🚴Jun 16, 2024

@Eliot_L @ljrk

Back when Computers were people.

Just like AI today.

Show threadUlrich JunkerJun 15, 2024
@ljrk I don’t know Tomasulo, but the book by Carver Mead and Lynn Conway was so important that it was used as the main reference for chip design in the CS courses that I took in the 1980ies,
Show threadlj·rkJun 15, 2024
@UlrichJunker Jup, they couldn't erase her from the title of the book. And yet, Mead was described as the Valley's founding father, Lynn not mentioned. Nowadays it's only Tomasulo (whose algorithm is an alternative to scoreboarding) who's remembered.
Show threadmaybeanerdJun 15, 2024

@ljrk it's funny you mention Conway, but not the "conway effect" she coined. This effect describes exactly what you're talking about: specific groups of people (often women) just "being forgotten".

Random first link I found on this: https://community.cadence.com/cadence_blogs_8/b/breakfast-bytes/posts/conway-effect

The Conway Disappearance Effect

<a href="https://community.cadence.com/cadence_blogs_8/b/breakfast-bytes"></a>Over Thanksgiving weekend, Lynn Conway sent me a link to an article that she'd written for the October edition of IEEE Computer, <a href="https://www.computer.org/csdl/mags/co/2018/10/mco2018100066.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Disappeared: Beyond Winning and Losing</a>. Mead & Conway When I interviewed Rob Rutenbar when he received last y...

Show threadlj·rkJun 15, 2024
@maybeanerd I... was not aware of that paper of hers. It's only briefly mentioned in the penultimate paragraph of "Legacy" on her Wikipedia page.
Show threadmaybeanerdJun 15, 2024
@ljrk it was also surprisingly difficult to find an example for my previous post on google as "conway effect" also returns mostly "conways law" results 😓
Show threadlj·rkJun 15, 2024
@maybeanerd Obviously... :\
Show threadThomas Fricke (he/his)Jun 15, 2024

@maybeanerd @ljrk

Reading https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=8519656

It is an eye opening article. We should have a Lynn Conway award for forgotten scientists.

IEEE Xplore Full-Text PDF:

Show threadJohn SeghersJun 15, 2024
@thomasfricke @maybeanerd @ljrk The above article by Lynn Conway is a remarkable story about her disappearance and about the beginnings of VLSI chip design. This was a story I did not know. Thank you for linking it.
Show threadKaliJun 15, 2024
@maybeanerd @ljrk this made me check if Conway’s Game of Life was related to Lynn Conway— nope, it was made by British mathematician John Horton Conway, who is a different person and died 4 years ago
Show threadlj·rkJun 15, 2024
@kali @maybeanerd Jup, indeed two different people despite working in close disciplines :)
Show threadJeffrey GoldbergAug 9, 2024

@ljrk I used to get Adele’s email. I never actually met her.

I would have thought that everyone knew about Perlmen, due to Algorhyme. Maybe people only know the poetry and not the author of the paper it was in.

Show threadlj·rkAug 11, 2024
@jpgoldberg Especially in academia, some do know her for that indeed, outside I've barely seen anyone having heard of her. And even inside academia, she's often reduced to "the weird woman who writes poems about algorithms" :-(
Show threadJeffrey GoldbergAug 12, 2024
@ljrk, well that is sad. Because the algorithm is brilliant and important. The poem, well, it’s fun.
Show threadlj·rkAug 13, 2024
@jpgoldberg But women can't have fun or something! At least not if they want to be taken seriously. :(
Show threadSaleh ElmohamedAug 10, 2024
@ljrk I recall from a talk by Carver Mead that Lynn was the driving force behind their collaborations particularly on the VLSI Systems text. Lynn's LSI Systems team at Xerox PARC kick started the project in 1977 to produce the first draft of it in 1978. What a pioneering and phenomenal work that was and still is.
Show threadJ Paul GibsonJun 14, 2024
@ljrk @lisamelton … and there are so many more, that i hope you dont mind me mentioning as they have had a personal impact for me -Barbara Liskov, Jeannette Wing, Pamela Zave, Muffy Calder, Ursula Martin…
Show threadlj·rkJun 14, 2024
@jpaulgibson @lisamelton To the contrary, keep 'em coming, we need more visibility and I don't know them all. There are soooo many!
Show threadkathaJun 14, 2024

@ljrk @jpaulgibson @lisamelton

Opens that one specific file labelled "for the next it guy telling you there never were women in it", appends list.

Show threadlj·rkJun 14, 2024
@kathol @jpaulgibson @lisamelton You're welcome -- and please share anyone I've missed! :)
Show threadJ Paul GibsonJun 14, 2024
@ljrk @kathol @lisamelton you may be interested in the following resource - Notable Women In Computing Playing Cards Project - https://medium.com/csforall-stories/notable-women-in-computing-playing-cards-project-8c6739ce4494
Notable Women In Computing Playing Cards Project - CSforALL Stories - Medium

A #WomensHistoryMonth post by Prof. Susan Rodger, a Professor of Practice in the CS Department at Duke University with a PhD in CS from Purdue University. The Notable Women in Computing project…

CSforALL Stories
Show threadkathaJun 14, 2024
@jpaulgibson oh, I know and love that one!
Show threadJ Paul GibsonJun 14, 2024
@ljrk @kathol @lisamelton
- i promise this is the last i will bother you - but Hedy Lamarr deserves a mention - https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/hedy-lamarr - Her story is a film waiting to be made !
Biography: Hedy Lamarr

Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-American actress and inventor who pioneered the technology that would one day form the basis for today’s WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth communication systems

National Women's History Museum
Show threadlj·rkJun 14, 2024

@jpaulgibson @kathol @lisamelton How could I forget to list Hedy?! She truly lived a life worth putting on the big screen.

And not in the least bothersome, thank you!

Show threadHitchin HackspaceJun 14, 2024

@ljrk @jpaulgibson @kathol @lisamelton

No need to wait for the film to be created and put on the big screen. It exists, was on the big screen and is worth seeing.
"Bombshell: The Hedey Lamarr Story"
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6752848/

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (2017) ⭐ 7.4 | Documentary, Biography, History

1h 28m

IMDb
Show threadlj·rkJun 14, 2024
@hackhitchin @jpaulgibson @kathol @lisamelton This is such a great day because I'm learning so much about so many other women or about other resources about them! Thank you!
Show threadJ Paul GibsonJun 14, 2024
@ljrk @hackhitchin @kathol @lisamelton - thanks to you for highlighting the problem of women being written out of ((computer) science) history. There are many exceptional women in computing, today, who also deserve our thanks. A few examples that come to mind are Emily M Bender, Timnit Gebru, Molly White, Cat Hicks, and Amy J. Ko.
Show threadtatzelbrummJun 14, 2024

@jpaulgibson @ljrk @kathol @lisamelton

That's Hedley, dammit!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtf7SgIBwG0

That's Hedley!

YouTube
Show threadJ Paul GibsonJun 15, 2024
@ljrk @kathol @lisamelton i forgot about sister mary kenneth keller https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/on-alumnae-mary-kenneth-keller/ … sorry for disturbing you, if she was already mentioned
On, Alumnae: Mary Kenneth Keller | On Wisconsin

As a nun, Keller defied traditional expectations in becoming the first woman to earn a PhD in computer science. Courtesy of Clarke University In 1965, Sister Mary Kenneth Keller PhD’65 became the nation’s first woman to earn a PhD in computer science. She came close

Show threadlj·rkJun 15, 2024
@jpaulgibson @kathol @lisamelton I don't think she was! I've already used the forms of the notabletechwoman GSheets to add some more women and I think we need to carry on that work – so many yet to go!
Show threadkathaJun 15, 2024
@ljrk @jpaulgibson @lisamelton I'm thinking about adding a Moodle course for my students, keep them coming!
Show threadKevin RussellJun 14, 2024

@kathol @ljrk @jpaulgibson @lisamelton

Computing was begun by Ada, "actually . . . " began shortly thereafter.

Show threadThe DoctorJun 14, 2024
@kathol @ljrk @jpaulgibson @lisamelton I'm adding one to my wiki - thanks for the idea.
Show threadpele75Jun 14, 2024
@ljrk @jpaulgibson @lisamelton Grace Hopper, the tenacious mathematician who democratized computing by leading the charge for machine-independent programming languages after World War II and Elizabeth "Jake" Feinler, the one-woman Google who kept the earliest version of the Internet online.
Show threadRobert BellJun 14, 2024
@pele75 @ljrk @jpaulgibson @lisamelton ….and the developer of COBOL! Adm Hopper was amazing
Show threadHenrik Kramselund - kramseJun 14, 2024
@ljrk @jpaulgibson @lisamelton Dorothy Denning co invented Intrusion detection systems and a huge profile and impact on information security
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_E._Denning
Dorothy E. Denning - Wikipedia

Show threadAdam [ 🎹 🥘 🧑‍💻 🏒 ♟️ 💞 ]Jun 14, 2024
@jpaulgibson @ljrk @lisamelton Frances E. Allen…
Show threadDavid MankinsJun 14, 2024

@jpaulgibson @ljrk @lisamelton

Liskov is at least remembered as the L in the “SOLID” principles of object oriented design.

Nancy Lynch, pioneering theoretician of distributed systems.

Nancy Leveson, pioneer of software safety engineering.

Show threadMichelle HughesJun 14, 2024

@ljrk @lisamelton

Computers are so queer I'm surprised straight dudes allow themselves to use them.

Show threadThe Witch of Crow BriarJun 14, 2024
@MegaMichelle @ljrk @lisamelton They had to rewrite history and convince themselves that they invented them, before they could bring themselves to touch them.
Show thread2¢Jun 15, 2024
@MegaMichelle @ljrk @lisamelton but they're kinky
Show threadJ Paul GibsonJun 14, 2024
@ljrk @lisamelton
i tell my students that if they dont know the history of women in computing then they dont know the history of computing.
Show threadMatildaJun 14, 2024
@ljrk @lisamelton & of course if you are mentioning the men these days (which I’ve occasionally had to in talks) you have to search to see if they’ve been accused of harassment or flying on Epsteins plane……
Show threadlj·rkJun 14, 2024

@junklight A certain founder of the MIT AI Lab comes to mind...

It's incredible how many of 'em just cannot *not* abuse.

Show threadMatildaJun 14, 2024
@ljrk indeed. Way too many of them…..
Show threadAnthropunk (Dr. SA Applin)Jun 14, 2024
@ljrk @lisamelton https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cracking-the-digital-ceiling/5B74B6983B2DD0E9FC341459FA855C6B
Cracking the Digital Ceiling

Cambridge Core - Computing and Society - Cracking the Digital Ceiling

Cambridge Core
Show threadZuri (he/him) ❌️👑 | 🕐 CETJun 14, 2024
@ljrk @lisamelton Not to mention Ada Lovelace
Show threadLisa MeltonJun 14, 2024
@ljrk Wow! Thanks so much for mentioning me in your list of absolutely awesome women! I am honored and humbled. 😊🥰💖