In 1946 six brilliant young women programmed the first all-electronic, programmable computer, the ENIAC, a project run by the U.S. Army in Philadelphia as part of a secret World War II project. They learned to program without programming languages or tools (for none existed)—only logical diagrams. By the time they were finished, ENIAC ran a ballistics trajectory—a differential calculus equation—in seconds! Yet when the ENIAC was unveiled to the press and the public in 1946, the women were never introduced; they remained invisible.

The ENIAC Programmers Project has been devoted for nearly two decades to researching their work, recording their stories, and seeking honors for the ENIAC Six—the great women of ENIAC.

The Computers which premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival on May 24, 2014 and details their story.

Featuring Movietone footage of the 1940s and never-before-seen interviews with the ENIAC Programmers, this inspiring story will make students believe that programming careers lie within their grasp, and adults cheer. This is a story lost for almost 70 years about the founding of technologies we cannot live without—by six incredible young women everyone should know!

The ENIAC girls were trained to understand the internal wiring diagrams of the ENIAC machine, and … could diagnose troubles almost down to the individual vacuum tube. Since [they] knew the application and the machine, [they] learned to diagnose troubles as well as, if not better than, the engineer. In a few cases, the local craft knowledge that these female programmers accumulated significantly affected the design of the ENIAC and subsequent computers. ENIAC programmer Betty Holberton recalled one particularly significant episode when she convinced John von Neumann to include a ‘stop instruction’ in the machine: Although initially dismissive, von Neumann eventually recognized the programmer’s legitimate need for such an instruction.