She Invented That A digital museum of women in science

Scientist Exhibit

Adele Goldstine

Computer Science

1920 – 1964 United States

Documented and helped program ENIAC, contributing to the transition toward stored-program computing

Overview Institutions
Adele Goldstine

Overview

About Adele Goldstine

Adele Goldstine was a mathematician and programmer who played an important role in the early history of electronic computing. She wrote the technical manual for ENIAC, making the complex machine understandable to its operators and programmers. She later worked with John von Neumann and others on converting ENIAC to use a form of stored programming, reducing the need for extensive physical rewiring. Her documentation and programming work helped turn early electronic computers into more flexible scientific tools.

Scientific Contribution

Key Discovery

ENIAC programming and documentation

Documentation and programming work on ENIAC that contributed to the transition toward stored-program computing.

Life Timeline

Important Moments

1943

career

Joins the wartime computing programme at the Moore School

Goldstine worked at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Electrical Engineering, training women who calculated firing tables for the U.S. Army.

1946

publication

Writes the ENIAC technical manual

Goldstine prepared the detailed technical description and operating documentation for ENIAC, preserving essential knowledge of how the pioneering electronic computer worked.

1947

discovery

Works on stored-program development for ENIAC

Goldstine collaborated with John von Neumann and others on changes that enabled ENIAC to use a stored-program style of operation.

Places & Networks

Institutions

university department

Moore School of Electrical Engineering, University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia , United States

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