A curiosity that started from a black and white photo,
Standing in front of a huge machine
Uncover the hidden stories of the nameless!

The women in the famous ENIAC photographs that author Cathy Kleiman encountered were no mere models, no matter how you looked at them.
Many people concluded that the women in the photos were just models, but they were not convinced.
The women standing before ENIAC had confident eyes, as if they knew the massive machine behind it well, and they had a confident demeanor, as if they could operate it masterfully at any moment.
Kleiman, who paid attention to the existence and role of people, has meticulously studied the women in black-and-white photographs through persistent research and investigation while digging into various films, documentaries, and broadcasts over the past 40 years, and has restored the lives of the female programmers who programmed ENIAC through documentaries and books.

This book, which contains the vivid stories of six female developers who preceded "Hidden Figures," delicately portrays the passion, friendship, and love of female programmers who have disappeared from history.
In the 1940s, six women and programmers, living in a time when discrimination and oppression were the norm, silently wrote a new history.
Through the stories of the ENIAC six, which will be remembered forever, let us gain strength and comfort to face reality and examine our attitude toward life.

As I left the docks, I created a task for myself.
I decided to find out the names of these women.
I decided to find out what they did to deserve to be featured in these beautiful 1940s ENIAC black and white photos.
I was going to find out their story.
---From the "Prologue"

For the next few days, Kay wondered about the machine he had seen firsthand.
When Project X is completed, what will it look like and who will use it? Will the users necessarily be engineers? Will they necessarily be men?
--- p.148

One day in mid-November, Herman suddenly appeared at the office door of six women.
His expression was serious.
It was clear that he was trying to give orders.
He said, “Follow me.
“We need you in the ENIAC room,” he said.
Someday I would return and resume my ballistic orbital duties.
But now they had more pressing matters to attend to.
Kay and his party looked at each other with the aforementioned faces.
It was the moment they had been waiting for.
The banishment from the ENIAC room is over.
They followed Herman with bright smiles.
--- p.217

We tried to find flaws in each other's work.
When the other person found a flaw, I was more happy than angry.
Because it meant that there would be no errors left in the program.
--- p.237

Betty and Jean were confident they could do it.
They had already verified the program they had created several times.
"great.
“Then you take charge of the demonstration,” Herman instructed.

They began programming the ENIAC the very next day.
Betty and Jean left the apartment and stepped out into the chilly February air.
“We were so excited.
It felt like a dream come true.”
--- p.249

Gene and Betty felt excluded from the event.
Jin felt that the presentation, which was a joint project between a man and a woman, had become a 'man's show', and Betty felt the same way.
She said this about what wasn't introduced that day.
“It was as expected.
At that time, women were not recognized at all.
“That was just a common occurrence.”
--- p.270

I received training that only a few people in the world can receive, and did work that only a few people can do.
It was a fact that all six women knew.
--- p.271

ENIAC proved its worth by performing a wide range of useful tasks.
John Mauchly's vision of ENIAC as a programmable, all-electronic, general-purpose computer capable of solving a vast number of human problems was becoming a reality.
Malin said with a smile.
“With this machine we could do whatever we wanted.
We were so excited.”
In this process, the profession of programmer was born.
A person has emerged who connects people with problems with computers and helps them solve the problems.
Six women were the first professional programmers in modern computing.
--- p.289

Few people had ever used ENIAC in its original, powerful 'direct programming' mode.
Only six people were hired solely for this task.

Betty Holverton (née Snyder)
Jean Bartik (née Jennings)
Kathleen Mauchly Antonelli (née McNulty)
Ruth Teitelbaum (née Richterman)
Malin Melcher (née Weskov)
Francis Spence (née Villas)

There were only six ENIACs.

--- p.327