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 

10

 

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

 

 

TROPP: 

I went through that same period and I know what you are talking about in terms of that 

kind of dedication. But in terms of your actual operating time at the Laboratory at 

Harvard, was the time pressure and the press to solve problems so great that there wasn't 

time for exchange of ideas and sort of a corridor kind of …(voice fades out). 

HOPPER: 

We didn't worry about the future at all. We didn't worry about mathematics except that it 

solved a particular problem. 

Remember if we had a problem running we were in there twenty four hours a day, the 

number of days it was running. I can remember leaving there in '44 for instance. We had 

been there three days and three nights and there was a hurricane on. Three of us went 

home by holding hands. (Brendle?) and I and another girl, all three were Waves, we held 

hands and one would hold on to the lamp post or a tree while the other two would string 

out and get to the next one and hang on and we made our way up by laughing from tree to 

post because we had been there for three days we  were going out even in a hurricane, we 

were going to get home and get washed. 

But there was no theorizing, there was no higher mathematics. There was no future of 

computers, there was nothing but get those problems going, and what the computer was 

doing. The future in a sense, didn't exist. 

TROPP: 

Well if the War hadn't been won of course there was no future. That was part of the same 

time press. 

HOPPER: 

I stayed on three years after the War you see. I stayed there from '46 to '49 in the heart of 

the contract. I worked on the Mark III. 

LUEBBERT: 

You weren't in the Navy then? 

HOPPER: 

I got out in '46. 

LUEBBERT: 

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

 

---

Computer Oral History Collection, 1969-1973, 1977 

11

 

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

 

 

You got out in '46? 

HOPPER: 

August of '46. I stayed on until June of '49. Then I joined UNIVAC. 

LUEBBERT: 

Were you a member of any of the conferences that were going on? There was the one at 

MIT on the differential analyzer. The one at Harvard. 

HOPPER: 

That one I edited the book for. 

TROPP: 

The '36? 

HOPPER: 

I edited that. 

LUEBBERT: 

And Aiken seems to have gone to one about every three months until '49. 

HOPPER: 

The rest of us didn't go. 

TROPP: 

How about communication with similar work that might have been going on near you, 

say at MIT? Was there much contact? 

HOPPER: 

There wasn't. Except some of the MIT from Radiation Lab people came up to see us. We 

didn't go down there. 

What's his name, you know. 

TROPP: 

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

 

---

Computer Oral History Collection, 1969-1973, 1977 

12

 

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

 

 

Gordon Brown? 

HOPPER: 

No. The famous guy… 

TROPP: 

Oh, Forrester? 

HOPPER: 

No, the… 

TROPP: 

Oh, I'm sorry, Robert Weiner? 

HOPPER: 

Robert Weiner used to come over in intervals and he and Aiken would scrap 

(                    ?). 

TROPP: 

I wonder, the kinds of things that Weiner was interested in? 

HOPPER: 

Robert Weiner was very busy claiming he had all the ideas first which of course Aiken 

(                    ?). (LAUGHTER). 

TROPP: 

Everybody apparently… 

HOPPER: 

Every seminar Weiner would go to sleep in the front row. 

TROPP: 

That was, I've even heard stories of Weiner not only sleeping in the front row but he was 

snoring so loud he almost drowned out the speaker. (LAUGHTER). Then asking the … 

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

 

---

Computer Oral History Collection, 1969-1973, 1977 

13

 

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

 

 

HOPPER: 

(         ?). I thought he was obnoxious. 

TROPP: 

Well would you, as I look through some of the material, it's difficult to find out any role 

that Robert Weiner played in any of the development? 

HOPPER: 

He didn't. He claimed he did though. 

TROPP: 

What were some of the things that he and Aiken fought about other than priorities? 

HOPPER: 

He was a very good actor and a very good salesman and he collected everybody else’s 

ideas and sold them, and then (                             ?). 

TROPP: 

How about Von Neumann? Was he there when… 

HOPPER: 

Yes, he was there. Very, very seriously involved with (             ?) because that was the 

first computer he had his hands on. 

TROPP: 

As I remember… 

HOPPER: 

He didn't get to ENIAC until a year after he got to Mark I. 

TROPP: 

There was a problem, I think, that Bob Campbell showed me of his that was run on the 

Mark I in early '44. 

HOPPER: 

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

 

---