Mark I

1944 November 20th

     I’ve recently graduated from the Naval Reserve Midshipmen’s school at Smith College, first in my class as Lieutenant Grace Hopper. I had a few reasons to want to join the Navy. First of all, I was bored. Bored with my job as a college professor, and bored with my marriage. Second, it was sort of a tradition in my family, my great grandfather had been in the navy, and if I hadn't joined he probably would have risen from his grave and haunted me. I assumed I was going to be assigned to a cryptography and code group, since those are more in my wheelhouse, but to my surprise, I was ordered to report to Harvard University to work on the Mark I. 

Commander Howard Aiken

Now I’m working on this enormous computer called the Harvard Mark I. It’s quite impressive really, a five ton piece of machinery, all bare and open and extremely noisy. The machine that's making this huge racket is in fact a computing machine, made for gunnery and ballistic calculations by my new boss, Howard Aiken. I’ve been poring over the blueprints for days, and with some assistance from Richard Bloch I think I’ve finally got it figured out.

The Harvard Mark 1

Speaking of my partner Bloch, he and Aiken have bit of a strained relationship. I’ve been trying to tell him that Aiken is just like a computer, he’s wired a certain way, and if you’re going to work with him you just have to realize how he’s wired. Bloch just doesn’t seem to understand how to work with Aiken, which has led to him getting in trouble more often than not.

I’ve also been assigned to write a book, which may be problematic since I’ve never written a book before. One day Commander Aiken came over to my desk and said, “You’re going to write a book.” and I told him I couldn’t do that, I’d never written a book before. 

He responded, “Well, you’re in the Navy now, you are going to write one.” Which I suppose is true. 

The book is supposed to be a guide to programming the Mark I as well as a little of it’s history. Since I really have no idea what I’m doing I've been meeting every evening for feedback from Aiken and reading him the five or so pages I’d written that day. He pointed out to me, that if you stumble when you read it aloud, you'd better go fix that sentence. It works too. I’ve improved my writing with his guidance, but the book still has got a ways to go.