Adele Goldstine

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Adele Goldstine (December 21, 1920 - November, 1964), born Adele Katz, wrote the complete technical description for the first digital computer, ENIAC. She attended the University of Chicago, and was married to Herman Goldstine, the military liaison and administrator for the construction of the ENIAC.

As a teacher of mathematics for the women "computers" at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering, Goldstine also trained some of the 6 women who were the original programmers of ENIAC to perform hand calculations of the firing table trajectory. Adele wrote the Operators Manual for the ENIAC after the 6 women (Kay McNulty, Betty Jean Jennings, Betty Snyder, Marlyn Wescoff, Fran Bilas and Ruth Lichterman) trained themselves to program the ENIAC using its logical and electrical block diagram. During this time, programming the machine meant moving dials and cables manually.

In 1946 Goldstine sat in on programming sessions with Jean Bartik and Dick Clippinger to implement Dick Clippinger's stored program modification to the ENIAC. John von Neumann was a consultant on the selection of the instruction set implemented. This solved the problem of the programmers having to unplug and replug patch cables for every program the machine was to run; instead the program was entered on the three function tables, which had previously been used only for storage of a trajectory's drag function.

ENIAC programmer Jean Bartik called Adele one of her three perfect partners in designing programs or logical design.[citation needed] They worked together to program the Taub program for the ENIAC.

Mrs. Goldstine died of cancer at the age of 43, leaving behind her husband and their two children.

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