Computer scientist Grace Hopper entering the machine code for her computer program that calculates tables of Bessel functions on a manual tape punch that creates 24-hole paper tapes for the Harvard Mark I electromechnical computer, at the engineering laboratory of IBM in Endicott, New York, August 4, 1944.
The computer worked around the clock on military projects, calculating massive mathematical tables. Principally it helped the Navy by computing tables for the design of equipment such as torpedos and underwater detection systems. Other branches of the military sought its help in calculating the design of surveillance camera lenses, radar, and implosion devices for the atomic bomb in the Manhattan Project. The mathematical tables that Mark I churned out were the first of their kind fulfilling Charles Babbage’s dream⁴ of printing directly from a machine’s output, eliminating all human error. One of the computer’s longest running projects required it to solve Bessel’s differential equation by generating numerous printed tables of Bessel functions of different orders and as a result, the computer was given the nickname “Bessie.”
It was Hopper’s extensive experience in the trenches coding in low-level machine language that inspired her to design a series of easier higher level languages culminating in FLOW-MATIC a language that helped shape the development of COBOL, an easy to use widespread english-like business oriented computer programming language.
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