Marlyn Meltzer

Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer (1922 – December 4, 2008) was one of the six original programmers of ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer.

The other five members were Kathleen McNulty Mauchly Antonelli, Jean Jennings Bartik, Frances Snyder Holberton, Frances Spence and Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum.

She was born Marlyn Wescoff Wescoff in Philadelphia and graduated from Temple University in 1942. She was hired by the Moore School of Engineering later that year to perform weather calculations, mainly because she knew how to operate an adding machine; in 1943, she was hired to perform calculations for ballistics trajectories.]At the time this was accomplished by using desktop calculates. In 1945, she was selected to become one of the first group of ENIAC programmers. The other five ENIAC women were Kathleen McNulty, Betty Jennings, Betty Snyder, Frances Bilas and Ruth Teitelbaum.

ENIAC was a huge machine full of black panels and switches, containing 17,468 vacuum tubes, 7200 crystal diodes, 1500 relays, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors and approximately 5,000,000 hand-soldered joints. It weighed more than 30 short tons, occupied 167m2 and consumed 150 kW of electricity. Its huge power requirement led to a rumor that the lights across Philadelphia would dim every time it was switched on.

ENIAC was unveiled to the public on February 14, 1946, their program captured the imagination of the press and made headlines across the country.

Although mentioned in Woman of the ENIAC, at the time, little recognition was attributed to the women working on the computer. The ENIAC became a very important machine during this time. The male engineers that build the machine soon became famous. The woman who ran this machine soon disappeared from history. She resigned from the team in 1947 to get married before ENIAC was relocated to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds.

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