Microsoft Word Hopper Grace oral history. 1980. 102702026. final doc

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Oral History of Captain Grace Hopper 

 

 

 

 

Interviewed by: 

 Angeline Pantages 

 

Recorded: December, 1980   

Naval Data Automation Command, Maryland 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHM Reference number: X5142.2009 

 

© 1980 Computer History Museum

 

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Table of Contents 

 

BACKGROUND HISTORY ...........................................................................................................3 

1943-1949:  MARK I, II, AND III COMPUTERS AT HARVARD....................................................6 

1949-1964: ECKERT AND MAUCHLY, UNIVAC, AND THE ONE-PASS COMPILER ................7 

The Need for User-Friendly Languages ..................................................................................10 

DEMANDS FOR THE FUTURE..................................................................................................12 

Application Processors, Database Machines, Distributed Processing ....................................12 

Demand for Programmers and System Analysts ....................................................................14 

The Value and Cost of Information..........................................................................................14 

The Navy’s Dilemma: Micros and Software Creation ..............................................................15 

The Murray Siblings: Brilliant Communicators.........................................................................18 

Common Sense and Distributed Computing ...........................................................................19 

BACK TO 1943-1949: HOWARD AIKEN ....................................................................................21 

Programming: Aiken’s Idea .....................................................................................................21 

Aiken: The Value of Writing and Documentation.....................................................................24 

BACK TO 1949-1964:  JOHN MAUCHLY AND THE UNIVAC YEARS ......................................26 

Univac – Navy Men and “Bright Young Women”.....................................................................26 

Battling General Purpose Software .........................................................................................29 

Integrating Computers into “The Whole Company” .................................................................31 

COBOL’s Ancestors and the Rise of Data Processing Programming .....................................32 

COBOL and CODASYL...........................................................................................................35 

The Push for Standard Languages and Education..................................................................38 

1964-1967:  UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, MOORE SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING........41 

Independent Modular Systems vs. Big General Purpose Computers .....................................41 

1980:  BACK TO THE NAVY ......................................................................................................45 

Teaching the Next Generation ................................................................................................45 

Women’s Liberation.................................................................................................................48 

The Family Genealogy and Afghans .......................................................................................50 

COMMENTS BY PHIL VINCENT ...............................................................................................52 

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CHM Ref: 

X5142.2009

                    © 1980 Computer History Museum                           Page 

3

 of 54

 

 

 

 

Captain Grace Hopper 

 

Contributed to the Software Industry SIG – Oral History Project 

 

 

Abstract:  

In this 1980 interview, Grace Murray Hopper describes her entry into computing 

and programming, when, as a Navy officer, she was assigned to work with Howard Aiken on the 

Mark series of computers and its coding. She talks about her post-Navy years with John 

Mauchly at Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation and, subsequently the Univac division of 

Sperry Rand where she and her staff developed A-O, the first compiler, followed by the first 

English-language compiler, B-O, or Flow-Matic, the major predecessor of COBOL. And, 

ultimately, about her return to the Navy to work on standard languages and software, during 

which she continued her earlier work with CODASYL to create COBOL, i.e., business-language 

standards. 

 Her discussion is filled with the technological, industry, and human issues she considered 

critical: Small systems and distributed computing in place of giant general purpose systems. 

The full integration of computing into the organization; Teaching the young and encouraging 

them to use their unfettered imaginations and pursue new ideas; Common sense and 

communication; and the honed skill of writing and documentation. 

Note:  The following interview with then-Captain Grace Murray Hopper was conducted in 

December 1980 by Angeline Pantages, former international and senior editor for Datamation 

magazine. This interview, as well as interviews of Hopper’s colleagues from various eras of her 

work, was for a biographical series, “They Made the Future in the Past,” which appeared in 

Denmark’s computer publication, Data.  The article on Grace Murray Hopper was published in 

February 1981.  

Background History 

To clarify the discussion and the timeline of events in her life, Ms. Pantages has provided this 

brief history.  

1906-1943 

Grace Hopper was born in New York City December 9, 1906, the eldest of three children. 

Attending Vassar College, she graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a BA in Mathematics and 

Physics in1928. She earned an MA in mathematics at Yale University in 1930 and a PhD in 

mathematics in 1934.  In 1931, she joined the Vassar faculty as associate professor – just a 

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