A sad note

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Betty Holberton Dies; Helped U.S. Develop Computer Languages

Frances "Betty" Snyder Holberton, 84, the software pioneer who
programmed the groundbreaking ENIAC digital computer for the Army in the
1940s and later helped create the COBOL and FORTRAN languages used to
operate the world's computers, died Dec. 8 at the Kingshire Manor
assisted-living community in Rockville. She had suffered a stroke and
had diabetes.

Late in life, Mrs. Holberton was credited for her efforts to make the
language and equipment of programming user-friendly. After World War II,
she created an instruction code, called C-10, that allowed for control
of the new UNIVAC -- the first general-purpose computer -- by keyboarded
commands rather than by dials and switches.

While engineers focused on the technology of computing, Mrs. Holberton
lay awake nights thinking about human thought processes, she later told
interviewers.

She came up with language using mnemonic characters that appealed to
logic, such as "a" for add and "b" for bring. She designed control
panels that put the numeric keypad next to the keyboard and persuaded
engineers to replace the UNIVAC's black exterior with the gray-beige
tone that came to be the universal color of computers.

UNIVAC was put to work during the 1950 Census, and it ultimately
revolutionized business.

During the rest of her career, spent as a supervisory mathematician at
the Navy's David Taylor Model Basin and the National Bureau of
Standards, Mrs. Holberton continued to push to make computers easier for
ordinary people to use, Kathryn A. Kleiman observed in writings about
Mrs. Holberton.

Mark Allen
I.S. Manager
Wilkes Telephone & Electric
A Dycom Company
Phone: (706) 678-9565
Email: allenmark@nu-z.net
http://www.nu-z.net



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