Interviewith grace Murray Hopper interviewers: Beth Luebert, Henny Tropp date of interview: 5 July 1972 place of interview: nm

Computer Oral History Collection, 1969-1973, 1977 

33

 

Grace Murray Hopper Interview, July 5, 1972, Archives Center, National Museum of American History 

 

 

They fight it right from the word go. They have formed a habit and a way and it's 

comfortable and they aren’t about to change. And some of the young people are worse 

than some of the people who survived the War years. 

TROPP: 

I say, I just find that hard to imagine. Because I've grown up and my life time has been 

one of constant change and the idea… 

HOPPER: 

Mine has been even greater than yours. I lived in the days when New York City's tallest 

building was the (Firing Building?) which was seven stories high. When in New York 

City every light fixture had one set of things which turned down this way which had a 

bulb in them with a glass globe over it and another set of things to turn this way and it 

had gas in it. Because the electricity was unreliable so you used the gas jets when the 

electricity wasn't working that day. 

The telephone, (                      ?) you could find out in the country, there were in New 

York City. In Philadelphia there were two telephone companies. You could call up one to 

get numbers for their half of the city, and so on. You would have to know which half of 

the city you were talking to. 

The trolley cars on Broadway had overhead wires. It built the subway. I can remember 

reading stories in(St. Nichdas?)that they were building a subway and building the tunnels. 

None of that existed when I grew up. 

My, I've got pictures taken from my grandfather's boat and New York City is flat, down 

like this. There were no telephones. It was a totally different world. 

So I have had to go all the way from that you see. I know, far better than you do, the 

changes accelerate. The changes are coming faster. 

TROPP: 

It's an (expediential?) kind of growth. 

HOPPER: 

The people who don't accept change and grow with it, or who attempt to block it are 

(                 ?) and aren’t going to make it. 

TROPP: 

For additional information, contact the Archives Center at 202.633.3270 or [e-mail]

 

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Computer Oral History Collection, 1969-1973, 1977 

34

 

Grace Murray Hopper Interview, July 5, 1972, Archives Center, National Museum of American History 

 

 

Are you having much luck in terms of getting people who have changed the paradigm 

within which they operate and look at problems? 

HOPPER: 

Oh yes, I'm getting quite, I always get two or three at every talk. I can always find 

someone. It's not always the youngsters. It's more apt to be the ones that were in World 

War II. 

There's also among the young people today, this tendency to think technology can't do 

anything for them. Or, it's almost an anti-technology attitude. Whereas, if they would 

only realize it, it would be the finest tool. Particularly in relation to things like pollution 

and the environment and everything else. What we need is a great many more facts in the 

(                ?) can handle and we can be very (               ?). It's when we plan on only a few 

facts that we go wrong. 

TROPP: 

Right. Well one of the dangers of predicting the future in terms of some of the dooms day 

attitudes, is our lack of realization that we are probably going to have more major 

technological break-through that are going to change the whole way in which we view 

the problem. 

HOPPER: 

I don't go along with Forrester at all because if I used Forrester's methods and went back 

to the buggy whips, I would have the whole world full with buggy whips. Because they 

would not realize what was going to be …(voice fades out). 

TROPP: 

We know those changes are going to come, we just don't know what they are going to be. 

(LAUGHTER). 

HOPPER: 

Well, also I find it a complete failure that we would go out in space. It was just a 

complete failure to realize that the human race would ultimately go out into space. 

One reason of course, is that we have to. Because the Sun will lean over and incinerate all 

the planets. So that my that time the human race must get off the Earth. I fully expect that 

when that happens and we have the last space ships ready to leave, there will still be 

some people who will refuse to leave because they won't believe the Earth is going to be 

incinerated. 

For additional information, contact the Archives Center at 202.633.3270 or [e-mail]

 

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Computer Oral History Collection, 1969-1973, 1977 

35

 

Grace Murray Hopper Interview, July 5, 1972, Archives Center, National Museum of American History 

 

 

This is what people are like. But we will go into space, we will have to go into space and 

we will have to travel in space. I'm not going to see it, but it will come. 

If anything, I can have the satisfaction of being a part of how we got there because it will 

take computers to do it. One trouble with my accepting any of the doom sayers, like 

Forrester and everybody is that there have always been doom sayers. 

I suspect that when the first couple of men agreed that they would say good morning to 

their wives by saying, "um", that there were doom sayers in the tribe who said that 

everything is going to go to pieces now. And they could have said everything is going to 

go to pieces if you develop language. 

TROPP: 

I'm not sure that I would classify Forrester as a doom sayer. I think what Forrester is 

saying is that given no new technological break through, we are going to have to 

change… 

HOPPER: 

That's not what they said when they published the darn book. 

TROPP: 

…Yes, that may be true. I'm just talking about conversations with him. I think he too… 

HOPPER: 

Besides which I put holes in his dynamic anyway. 

TROPP: 

…but he too is trying to create a new way of looking at things. Whether his is the right 

way or the correct way is open to debate. 

HOPPER: 

He's got too much computer in it and not enough imagination. I mean, you can go dead 

wrong if you use computers wrong. Computers never have a new idea. They have no 

imagination. They do only what they are told to do. They are a tool. Any time you take 

them beyond being a tool, you are in trouble. 

You give them a problem and they will do only that problem as you give it to them. They 

will not add one atom of imagination to it. This is the thing that's missing in many of our 

concepts, and that's imagination. 

For additional information, contact the Archives Center at 202.633.3270 or [e-mail]

 

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