Grace Hopper Is The Computer Queen | Letterman

[@larryconlin118]

When I was a Data Processing Technician 3rd Class in 1986 she spoke at a conference in Virginia Beach. All the seats where taken by senior officers. She walked in and asked the officers to stand up because she wanted "her" Data Processors to sit down front. I still have one of her nano seconds. Almost 40 years later I am still working in the computer field and always remember her speech as one of the things that inspired me to stay in the Navy and to continue with Information Systems as a career.

[@tietosanakirja]

NSA just published an internal lecture by Grace Hopper from the 80's, right here on youtube. It felt like time travel and her great personality was on full display.

[@Hans-gb4mv]

I really loved that one.

[@JillKnapp]

I came here to say this exact thing. That lecture was so so so good. She's a legend and a trailblazer.

[@liammcooper]

Her explanation of the nano-second is genius.

[@agluebottle]

Rdml Hopper was the GOAT. And funny as hell too. Incredible person.

[@hard2starboard312]

I retired from the Navy and knew of Adm Hopper, but had no idea she appeared on Letterman. This 9 and a half minute video was one of the most enjoyable I've ever seen, and makes me proud to have worn the same uniform she did. What a brilliant mind she was.

[@envitech02]

No one can believe that this HUGE legend was packed in such a tiny frame!!. She is to programmers (now known as coders), what Henry Ford is to cars. RIP RADML Grace Hopper! May your name lives forevermore in the vastness of the Internet.

[@scott1285]

A racist pile of garbage? That is what she is? Wow!

[@clurkroberts2650]

I had the honor meeting the Admiral in the 80s. She delivered a speech to Memorex Computer Technology Symposium. I was impressed with her knowledge, and command of speech and the audience. Go Navy!

[@StreakingTiger]

When I was in my early 30's, about 40 years ago, I had the privilege of actually meeting and talking to this brilliant woman. She was the guest speaker at our local DPMA (Data Processing Management Association) meeting in Greenville SC. She gave everyone a short piece of wire that represented how far light travels in a nanosecond. I kept that piece of wire for 20+ years and always thought about what she did for information technology. I'm retired now, but spent 40+ years in Information Technology.

[@spootnewton7121]

If you are young and in a tech industry today, you are standing on the shoulders of giants.

[@DesignBuildExecute]

One of the most brilliant minds to walk this Earth. Dave had no idea how lucky he was to have met her.

[@Gr8Layks]

He had _some_ idea-he invited her onto the show.

[@maryk3458]

She reminded me of his mom Dorothy

[@joe-vz6hx]

Yeah well that's typical of Dave for guests who aren't comedians or actors.

[@kstepko]

What a phenomenal woman! Dave was always willing to use his celebrity to highlight ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

[@joeybaseball7352]

She's far from ordinary. But yes, most of ordinary guests are way more interesting than whatever nepotism child, Hollywood bimbo he has on promoting her latest fragrance, or celebrity beefcake movie star is there to promote whatever garbage superhero movie they have coming out.

[@privatepenguin3137]

I'll second the "far from ordinary" comment. Grace Hopper is still honored to this day with several conferences named after her....as well as one of the institutions of Yale named after her....and a Navy ship, the USS Hopper is named for her too!

[@kstepko]

I wasn’t trying to imply that Grace Hopper isn’t accomplished or skilled. I’m saying that Dave always made an effort to feature people other than Hollywood celebrities on his show and utilized his own celebrity to help increase the number of people who are aware of them and their contributions. Grace Hopper remains quite humble throughout this interview. It is Dave who keeps on pointing out her accomplishments as extraordinary.

[@privatepenguin3137]

@@kstepko Understood and very true! Dave never kissed up to the Hollywood types anyway. He was always more into the regular everyday people. My comments were more meant for anyone who finds the thread and may not have known who Grace was.

[@johnw8984]

Especially our military who never get put on TV unless it's for something heroic or like this woman did which really is phenomenal considering she was 37 in 1944 she had to be in her early 80s by this time.

[@joshmos]

wow she's GREAT!!!

[@donp1964]

I love this woman! Such an impressive career, and still sharp witted in this interview.

[@joekelley5121]

I've been a computer geek since I was a kid, and have read about Grace, but never seen any videos of her. Such a charming person! The computer owes her a lot!

[@stereoroid]

In case anyone's curious: she mentioned Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), which was acquired by Compaq, which was acquired by Hewlett Packard.

[@marksasahara1115]

I lived in MA, in the 70's and a few friends and neighbors worked at DEC. I was kind of pumped when she mentioned Digital. God Bless DEC!

[@ron.v]

I'm curious. We used DEC equipment at the data center where I worked. Because it was Bell System, we used UNIX and DEC PDP-11s, the same minicomputer on which UNIX was created and developed. I loved that equipment and always wondered what happened to DEC. Thanks for the history lesson.

[@paul_frazee]

DEC was actually a big deal. They built the PDP-7 and PDP-11 mini computers which were very important in the 70s. In fact, the operating system "Unix" was originally built for the PDP machines, and basically any device that's not running Windows can trace it's software lineage back to Unix. It's fairly unsurprising that Hopper would have been working at DEC, because both she and DEC were the top of the industry. (Hopper was not a part of Unix, however. Those engineers are legends in their own rights.)

[@tick7146]

And to this very day, HP still supports OpenVMS which is the OS that originally ran on the VAX11 / 750 / 780. To clarify some of the replies, , PDP computers did not run UNIX, they either ran RT11 or RSX. RT11 was for real-time applications whereas RSX was for traditional computing

[@andrewandres148]

@@paul_frazee So would one of those Unix systems be perhaps what a midsize airlines would use in the 80s?

[@carlosenriquegonzalez-isla6523]

They should make a movie about this woman!

[@jaberwoky_]

What a legend! No idea how I missed this episode of Letterman back in the day. I was a batch COBOL programmer at the start of my career. One of the most elusive software bugs to find was a missing period.

[@Frankincensedjb123]

COBOL, wow! Ancient history. Did you write on hollerith cards and submit your program on a tray to the operator for processing? 😄 When I started, I programmed in RPGIII on an AS400. Ancient times, indeed.

[@jaberwoky_]

@@Frankincensedjb123 Our providing systems were pretty advanced - we submitted jobs in batch with JCL. (Job Control Language) We did have some paper tape readers though. I also programmed in RPG and Assembler but moved over to mini computer (desktop) programming against the advice of my manager. He said there was no future in desktop computing. 😁

[@bitteroldman]

@@jaberwoky_ S0C7

[@bitteroldman]

@@Frankincensedjb123 and I was the operator/admin who fixed 90% of the errors b/c the "smart" people couldnt spell or use proper syntax

[@Somenite]

@@Frankincensedjb123 Not so ancient history. Still hundreds of billions of lines of COBOL running with 40% of existing banking systems built on it. Used quite a bit still in the insurance industry as well. No one wants to pay to rewrite all those systems.

[@MarcusHammarberg]

> How did you know so much about the computers? > I didn't - this was the first one What an amazing person!

[@DommageCollateral]

this is actually not true. the first concept of computer (as a calculation machine) as was already created in the late midages, but it failed because back then they coudnt assemble so many wooden gears. but besides that, computer is also title for a person who did calculations

[@gregh5061]

Obviously when people talk about computers they're referring to modern day ones running on electricity. Your argument is spurious.

[@AbdulGabagool83]

What a badassline

[@VictorianDad]

​@@gregh5061The first electronic computer was probably the one built in the UK at Bletchley Park during WW2. It was used to crack German communications codes. It's said that the work done at Bletchley Park shortened the war by two year.

[@gregh5061]

@@VictorianDad Grace Hopper's main contribution isn't inventing the modern computer, it was creating the world's first compiler, way back in 1952, plus co-developing COBOL.

[@bellissimoeditorial]

She's a colossal baddass.

[@brookswoodward7278]

She had a great mix of humility and confidence.

[@patton303]

Wow! I remember this episode. I watched it back in college. Probably while doing my homework. Grace is amazing!

[@michaelparks6120]

You actually DID your homework in college? I seee.... perhaps that is where I Strayed

[@patton303]

@@michaelparks6120 To get a degree that I've never actually used. So it balances out. 👍

[@michaelparks6120]

@@patton303 hahaha.... dig

[@jamesanthony5681]

I remember this Letterman episode, and I remember the earlier 60 Minutes interview that Morley Safer did with her. Safer asked her (Ph. D., Math) if women were better than men at mathematics. 'No, about the same,' I believe was her reply.

[@privatepenguin3137]

Grace is STILL honored today with conferences and events named in her honor....a navy ship named after her....and I think one of the schools of Yale is also named after her.

[@maryk3458]

and a park in Arlington va. she lived within walking distance of the Pentagon.

[@GrantTarredus]

Thank you both for telling us!

[@Igor-om2wy]

Also, an optical fiber cable connecting North America and Europe, laid by the Google Corporation

[@BryanSteacy]

Hey Letterman staff. Thanks for all the uploads. If you're pulling from the original tapes you should consider deinterlacing everything to double the framerate. That way no data would be lost and it'd be a great KZbin archive copy.

[@VisionPlanetMedia]

In another video RADL Hopper explained how the term ‘computer bug’ came to be: the MARK1 went down and they opened it up to see if one of the vacuum tubes had shorted out and found a large moth had shorted one of the contacts. They removed the moth and taped it into the logbook. This the term computer bug came to describe software errors. What an amazingly brilliant and humorous person she was.

[@964cuplove]

Only that it wasn’t yet vacuum tubes it was Relais at the time and one had chewed the moth to death… I think it was the Mark II Computer that this happened to…

[@snowwilliams1]

Why dont we have a memorial of this great woman?..Opps, just found out there is a “Grace Murray Hopper memorial park” in Arlington, Va. 👏

[@mjp96]

Everything I have ever done in my professional life - I owe to Grace Hopper ‼❣

[@gertrudelaronge6864]

Very impressive! Why have I never heard of this woman? She is amazing!

[@MeltWithU]

For anybody 37 learning computers for the first time, is a task. Now be 37 and learn the first computer so well that you can write a manual for other people to be able to use that computer. That is amazing. What an amazing woman. The experiences she had in her life, truly awe inspiring.

[@keefriff99]

Very true. I’m a 44-year old software engineer, and learning new concepts gets more difficult as you age. Your brain elasticity isn’t nearly what it was in your teens and 20s. She is amazing.

[@romanval69]

She wasn't totally green-- she already had a Ph.D in mathematics.. But it's still quite an accomplishment, especially in the early 1940's.

[@vineetdodd9915]

Not to mention the fact that her manuals became stuff of legend.

[@PlasticCant]

Or being 45 when you invent the compiler.

[@kortest4868]

@@PlasticCant which is far more impressive than writing a manual in my book.

[@ilhuicatlamatini]

Whoa! Had no idea she was a guest on Letterman, what a cool clip to share with classrooms! Could have used this in my digital course presentation last year.

[@DrStrange1966]

I had just started working at DEC (the Digital Equipment Corporation she plugs at the beginning of the interview :-) ) when I saw this air. She is amazing, and also this reminds me of how good Dave is at interviewing. Quick-witted and genuinely interested in what his guests had to say.

[@custer2449]

Commodore Grace Hopper was fabulous.

[@Ultra54able]

What a person...OMG she is amazing.

[@jpavlvs]

Amazing Grace.

[@Seaworthy99-1]

I met Capt Hopper at Logan airport, Boston on several occasions.

[@axiomist4488]

It wasnt mentioned that she discovered the first computer "bug". One time the computer crashed and they had to find out why. Now, back then computers had tubes, big glass tubes (transistors didnt exist yet), so they looked and looked and finally found out that a moth, being attracted to the light of the tube had made contact with it and burned, thus shorting it out. She found the moth, which is now in a museum and since then, anything which causes a computer to make an error or crash, is called a "bug" and the process of finding it is called "debugging" the computer (could be in the software as well). It was so exciting for me to finally see her, live and talking.

[@iwikal]

The way she tells the story in an NSA internal lecture from 1982, which is available in full on youtube if you decide to go looking for it, is it wasn't stuck in a tube but a relay, squished between the contacts and preventing it from closing. And she seems to imply that it wasn't her but one of the other operators who came up with the idea of saving it for posterity with the note "first actual case of a bug being found" in the log book. The wording also implies that the use of the term "bug" for describing problems in some machine was already well established, and that's why they thought it would make such a funny memento. Perhaps the term wasn't originally inspired by the idea of some figurative insect crawling into the machine, but by the concept of "bug" in the sense of a disease or ailment.

[@demonsaint1296]

This was the night before I went off to boot camp. I had never forgotten what she said about sleep when you can and course that night I couldn’t sleep. Almost 38 years later I can watch this segment again. Wow!!!

[@ylette]

6:27 Of course she was a Commodore ❤

[@elizabethlarson9655]

Yay! Thank you for posting this. I'd asked about this interview some months back. Very excited to see it!

[@petewhite85]

Bravo Zulu Grace! A national treasure.

[@benda18]

What a blessing to see this interview.

[@964cuplove]

Look up her 1h+ lecture, she held in 82. so much in there that’s true and so far ahead of her time ! And she in her position always championed the young and upcoming people… she was just so intelligent.

[@mfpendle]

She's just wonderful!

[@MatthewHarrold]

This woman is severely underrated in history.

[@nezlquasie]

Many woman are.

[@poppyallgood6918]

@@nezlquasieCame to say this. Now I have to think of something different🤔…

[@poppyallgood6918]

THERE USED TO BE *WOMEN*??! 😮🫨🤯

[@sidecar7714]

I doubt it

[@JillKnapp]

The National Security Agency has a KZbin channel, and they have videos of several of her lectures. They are absolutely brilliant, and still completely relevant and eye opening today. Highly highly recommended!

[@aslansown]

Wonderful interview!

[@shaunhayward]

She was so incredibly brilliant and her whit was unrivalled.

[@sprintwithcarlos]

Love her, one of the greatest human beings ever 🔝

[@justcurious3119]

Thank you SO much for posting this! I had no idea. Great show bit, and learned something!

[@MarcusHammarberg]

The way she takes time to put the pepper pack back in her purse, without giving Letterman a glance. She is a legend

[@NNasab-pm4le]

One of his best interviews ever.

[@joe-vz6hx]

Such an amazing person, esp given how much she achieved when it was almost unheard of for women to do so at the time. As a computer geek I learned of her early on and more than once had punch cards in the "hopper." RIP

[@new2vero2]

lol few Times Dave was on his BEST behavior… she was great

[@Cheektowga]

Love her!

[@terenterenteren8301]

LEGEND.

[@DrStrange1966]

Oops, she did get a unit wrong. A picosecond is a trillionth of a second, not a quadrillionth of a second.

[@OrigamiMarie]

I noticed that. I think the names and sizes of all the tiny fractions and large multiples were kinda being standardized during her time, so I'll forgive her for the errors.

[@jairo8746]

A trillion for an American is a billion for most other people in the world.

[@RayThackeray]

In the UK a billion is a million million, but in the USA it's only a thousand million. Very confusing.

[@williamyoung9401]

She is 100% right about needing a course for civilian transition from the military. There needs to be A LOT more resources dedicated to that, as well as better-funded, continual support in the years after. Especially if they have seen active combat. I wish I could have met this woman. She's a treat.

[@MultiSkyman1]

Wow, never heard of her. Amazing American.

[@pibly7784]

She’s awesome.

[@RichardHandal301]

Good to see the filmmaker fellow get his request.

[@meganwelden9552]

OMG She was AWESOME!

[@wa1ufo]

Incredible!

[@ModrnDayMonk]

What a gem ❤

[@jorgeserratoc3031]

I LOVE THIS WOMAN, SHE WAS SO FUNNY

[@elizabethcanales7170]

"Well, World War II to begin with......"🤣🤣🤣. Awesome lady!

[@maryk3458]

that was a hoot!

[@X-OR_]

10 Print "Grace is Cool"; 20 Goto 10

[@bobanderson6656]

You do realize not everyone will get that, right?

[@SusanPearce_H]

Now write that in COBOL! Grace invented COBOL.

[@ronald3836]

@@SusanPearce_H IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. PROGRAM-ID. IDSAMPLE. ENVIRONMENT DIVISION. PROCEDURE DIVISION. DISPLAY 'GRACE IS COOL'. STOP RUN.

[@jackielinde7568]

Hehehehe...

[@jacobdavidcunningham1440]

4:33 omg the wire haha what pico second peppers ha

[@allwaizeright9705]

What a legend...

[@martina5296]

Why isn't she more known!!? There are so many women who were in male dominated (ONLY) fields yet no one learns about them school. That does a disservice to what they had to go through and their courage. Not only that, but they succeeded anyway. Grace Hopper is an incredible woman who is real pioneer in computers. That was/is incredible about David Letterman. He interviewed/interviews incredible, interesting and remarkable people who aren't famous or wealthy.

[@rice31254]

She is incredibly well known to the military community. Programmers also know her via curriculum.

[@Ahjile]

She actually didn't have to go through too much of anything, or at least not anything more than an average male student goes through today. The first "computers", as they were actually called, were just women who were really good at math. After that, machine computers were initially programmed and operated primarily by women like Grace. And also like her, many other women created the first programming languages and software. The whole industry, in the software, programming, and maintenance areas, was staffed and run primarily by women, and it stayed that way for several decades, until men started entering the field far more in the 1970s. It only became a field staffed and run primarily by men at some point before 1990. And the decline in women in that field has been sharp ever since, perhaps because women began to see it more and more as a male "dominated" field and don't know the history of it.

[@RationalistRebel]

@@Ahjile The big shift in demographics was due to the rise of PCs. Before that, the level of experience for people entering the field was fairly equal. When families started buying them in mass, most only had one and they were arrogantly seen as a "mans" domain. The young men who grew up with them at home then outpaced the women in college who came in with less experience. In spite of the near ubiquity of "computers" nowadays, that disparity hasn't closed all that much. Although it started with PCs, the perpetuation of other cultural "norms" continues to sustain it. Given the prominence of women in the field from the very beginning, that's quite unfortunate. Movies like _Hidden Figures_ are starting to set the record straight.

[@fredsalter1915]

What a doll she is! I wish I had just a fraction of her intelligence!

[@ex2bot]

I didn’t know she had been on Letterman. Brilliant individual.

[@gertrudelaronge6864]

Grace is truly amazing! I wonder if that song is about her?

[@armusc757]

Smart as can be, tuff as nails. She must be the coolest granny ever.

[@maryk3458]

No kids. Divorced young.

[@christopherkingston9601]

Fabulous life, both of them.

[@MisterItchy]

What a boss!

[@rowdybear9830]

What a fascinating interesting lady! Thank you for your service!

[@AztecHusBone]

OMG, so smart, very intimidating

[@macicana64]

She is adorable!

[@chrisfoxwell4128]

This woman knows more in 1986 than I know now.

[@kevinjohn0214]

Much love she did it as duty and beautiful and funny woman

[@andrewandres148]

That right there is a brilliant Navy salt, with a dash of pepper.....

[@francoisdurocher4951]

Some trivia about this marvelous human individual.... In an interview with Peter Gzowsky in Canada, she shared that she and her team coined the expression. COMPUTER BUG.... She said that in the 1940's computers used lamps (tube) and one lamps burned because a moth landed on a tube .... It was the first "Computer But".👍🏻

[@aprz2308]

they need to make a movie about her

[@antoniollopis523]

It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. Grace Hopper. This is the maxim that SpaceX follows today.

[@CCoburn3]

I consider myself part of the third generation of computer science. Grace was 1st Generation. She taught some of my teachers -- the second generation. That shows just how recently computers were actually developed.

[@BobbySacamano]

What a badass

[@lorib360]

Yes!

[@arthurharrison1345]

Wonderful.

[@SusieFarias.]

Beyond she is so smart, she is also very cute

[@ISIO-George]

I've heard this story a few times in various forms over the years, originally when I was in the Navy over 40 years ago working for the division of nuclear reactors. One of the early computers she was working with would sometime breakdown because insects [mostly moths] would get into the equipment racks and short things out. One day when she and an assistant had the computer opened up and they were removing dead moths and making repairs someone walked by and asked them what they were doing. One or the other replied they were "debugging the computer" and that is the origin of the term. Hopper came up with the idea that instead of programming a computer in machine language, basically the numbers that make up the instruction set of the computer, that there should be a program that turned English language statements and formulas into machine language. What we now know as compilers. She also developed the COBOL programming language.

[@woodennickel6148]

"That all you got. Leonardi Davinkie?"~~Freddy the Freeloader

[@woodennickel6148]

Don't fret yourself, Harry L. Hopkins' Estate. I'll make due some how.

[@changtimwu]

During the interview, she is around 80 years old, yet her mind remains remarkably clear. Perhaps we should learn from her health regimen.

[@bobanderson6656]

I "think' I've seen pictures of her smoking.....

[@the_real_bin_chicken]

@@bobanderson6656 yeah apparently she was a very heavy smoker.

[@iwikal]

I think a significant part of her mental health regimen consisted of staying in active duty, solving problems and leading a team of researchers. The mind atrophies when left idle.

[@Ratstail91]

God bless - she literally wrote the book on computers...

[@richardiporter]

legend

[@GPSjammer]

What an interview! haha

[@BobBlanchett]

Oh My Heart!

[@robertsmith5805]

Gracie was a legend.....

[@cjar8989]

So cool!

[@marksasahara1115]

I don't know much, but I'm pretty sure that without Rear Admiral Hopper, the evolution of computers would not be where they are today. Side note: She was part of the team that found the first literal computer bug, a moth stuck inside the electronics of the Harvard MK II Computer. Dave did a good job helping draw her out and letting her be naturally funny.

[@ron.v]

Thanks for mentioning the bug. I remember her telling that story during another interview. I think she also developed or help develop COBOL.

[@marksasahara1115]

@@ron.v Hey! Yeah, if you look at her biography, she def helped create COBOL. I think she was the first to compile info.

[@ron.v]

@@marksasahara1115 She is definitely a legend. Thanks for the info. Amazing how they first programmed in machine language (if you want to call it that) by flipping switches. When we booted the UNIX PDP-11s on the job in the 1980s we were still flipping switches. LOL

[@justayoutuber1906]

Nvidia has named their 2024 CPU generation Grace and GPU generation Hopper after Grace Hopper.

[@RaquelFoster]

It's funny that she said she had to write a book. My aunt Violet Confer was in the Army for 50 years, and joined at the same time. She had to compile/maintain a book of all the specs of every computer IN THE WORLD. At first it was small. The last edition was in the early '60s, and it had become a 3-inch-thick book. If she was alive she'd tell you the Army had the first computer. The ENIAC was funded by the Army, and it was at Ballistic Research in Maryland where she worked. But that topic always has asterisks re: the definition of computer. I wish I could've asked if they knew each other. I'm sure they met. The military computers in the '40s, the Apollo computer in the '60s, and the Cray supercomputers in the '80s all had small groups of mostly women doing a lot of the work.

[@jordibertran3284]

In the video seems COBOL was the first compiled language. That's wrong. Hopper made a first try of a compiled language, but that was A-0 in 1952. Later, in 1959, she contributed to develop COBOL; but that was after the first successful compiled language: FOTRAN (1957). That do no diminish Hopper accomplishments, A-0 was the fist step and a very innovative one.

[@TheGreatAtario]

I think Commodore sounds cooler than Rear Admiral