Happy 90th birthday to Margaret Hamilton, who led the development of the on-board flight software for NASA's Apollo Guidance Computer. Here she is in 1969, standing next to listings of the Apollo guidance software she and her MIT team produced.
Aug 17, 2026, 11:45 AM@brucelawson every time I see that photo, I imagine what happened a few seconds after the photo was taken. There is no way the entire stack did not collapse after she let go of it. 😀
@loke An LLM tells me "So, on the geometry visible here: probably standing, but deliberately and precariously balanced rather than inherently secure. The dramatic appearance comes from the cumulative overhangs; it does not necessarily indicate that the stack's overall centre of mass has passed outside its base."
Every time I see that photo, my brain and I get into a fight over if that's a tall pile of books or a really short woman.
@csstrowbridge Not books as such, listings from a computer printer in binders. They'll be on continuous, but perforated, fan-fold paper with tractor feed holes up the side and plastic “wires” through the top tractor hole gripped in little sliders on the plastic covers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_stationery
(I'm 20 years younger than Margaret Hamilton but used plenty of that stuff in the 1970s.)
@brucelawson
curious what programming language they used.
@goedelchen @ditol ... and prayers 🙈 https://www.flickr.com/photos/dhaun/5626342731/
/cc @kevlin
@brucelawson The software she wrote was also used on the Skylab space station. Not only was she the lead on the project, she was their first hire for the team in general. She later became Director of the Software Engineering Division at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory. As I recall, she's also responsible for naming "software engineering" as the discipline she led at MIT.
@brucelawson She's watching my every move :)
Happy Birthday 🎂
From wiki:
Margo Madison, a fictional NASA engineer in the alternate history series For All Mankind, was inspired by Hamilton.
I used fo tweet with her daily back on Twitter.
@MedeaVanamonde me too! And she was so young in her thoughts! @brucelawson @candi
@brucelawson
Not the "Margaret Hamilton" I was thinking of when I started reading the post. 😉
@brucelawson This is where I get to show a photo of one of my most special things, a MISB LEGO Women of NASA kit signed by (among others) Margaret Hamilton.
Cutest programmer ever.
@brucelawson
✌🏾
@brucelawson - Congratulations 👍
@brucelawson I love this photo. "Suck it up, fellas!"
Aug 17, 2026, 3:46 PMNASA aerospace engineer Judith Love Cohen deserves a mention
she helped create the Abort Guidance System that rescued the Apollo 13 crew
which is notable enough
but the crazy part:
a few months before the Apollo 13 emergency she went to work in labor. she left work and brought a computer printout of an engineering problem to the hospital. she solved the problem between contractions, called her boss with the solution, then gave birth...
to Jack Black the actor
@benroyce @brucelawson How have I never heard about this?
Aug 17, 2026, 3:59 PMit's a crazy story!
judith has another son, jack black's half brother, neil, who has a notable career in computer science and engineering, getting GPS into phones
judith also had a son howard, who sadly died of AIDS, before antiretrovirals. jack has spoken about how this devastated the family
she also had a daughter, rachel, but rachel lives a private life outside the spotlight. she played the flute at her mother's memorial
@benroyce @alexlubertozzi @brucelawson A truly remarkable life.
Aug 17, 2026, 7:15 PM@Thorium @alexlubertozzi @brucelawson
jack black also got into engineering
but was murdered by bruce willis for his efforts
😬
(/s)
@benroyce @brucelawson NASA had awesome women working for them. Computer programming has long been regarded a woman's job since it was thought to be simple...
Aug 17, 2026, 4:39 PMand computer programming, the very concept itself, was invented by a woman
ada lovelace
in 1843!
(on charles babbage's mechanical Analytical Engine. the first published computer program, by her, calculated a sequence of the Bernoulli numbers)
@benroyce @brucelawson I actually knew that, thanks to this great book: https://www.amazon.com/Good-Night-Stories-Rebel-Girls/dp/0997895810
@benroyce @isisevrinen @brucelawson Did I read somewhere that the frequency hopping concept of Bluetooth was also created by a woman?
Aug 17, 2026, 5:20 PM@H4Heights @isisevrinen @brucelawson
yes!
you're thinking of hedy lamarr
her invention was for wwii, for radio guided torpedos
she did it with george antheil, who was a gonzo composer. for "Ballet Mécanique" he composed a score for 16 synchronized player pianos, two grand pianos, electronic bells, xylophones, bass drums, a siren and three airplane propellers
sadly the navy didn't like it. but then adopted it in the 1960s... after the patent had expired
Aug 17, 2026, 6:23 PMRight.
By the way, frequency hopping has also been useful for radars for a long time.
(Makes them harder to locate.)
It has also been one of many countermeasures against monitoring (eavesdropping).
Not an exhaustive list.
Aug 17, 2026, 6:27 PMYes.
A remarkable person on multiple counts.
And the Ada programming language is named after her.
@brucelawson she is also only 4'10" so the stack as not as tall as it looks.
@brucelawson She was only 33 at the time?! What a legend.
This photo seems like an artifact from a more hopeful era.
