Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology

Hopper, Grace Murray 231Although the home or small office remains a significantmarket segment, specific targeting to the segment hasbecome more difficult. With falling PC prices and increasingcapabilities, there is little difference today between amid-level “consumer” computer system and the kinds ofsystems previously marketed for home office use.Further ReadingAttard, Janet. The Home Office and Small Business Answer Book.2nd ed. New York: Owl Books, 2000.Ivens, Kathy. Home Networking for Dummies. 4th ed. Hoboken,N.J.: Wiley, 2007.Orloff, Erica, and Kathy Levinson. The 60-Second Commute: AGuide to Your 24/7 Home Office Life. Upper Saddle River, N.J.:Prentice Hall, 2003.Slack, S. E. CNET Do-It-Yourself Digital Home Office Projects. Berkeley,Calif.: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media, 2007.Small Business Computing. Available online. URL: http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/. Accessed August 7, 2007.SOHO Computing. Available online. URL: http://www.sohocomputing.info/. Accessed August 7, 2007.Hopper, Grace Murray(1906–1992)AmericanComputer ScientistGrace Brewster Murray Hopper was an innovator in thedevelopment of high-level computer languages in the 1950sand 1960s. She is best known for her role in the developmentof COBOL, which became the premier language forbusiness data processing.Hopper was born in New York City. She graduated withhonors with a B.A. in mathematics and physics from VassarCollege in 1928, and went on to receive her M.A. and Ph.D.in mathematics at Yale University. She taught at Vassar from1931 to 1943, when she joined the U.S. Naval Reserve atthe height of World War II. As a lieutenant (J.G.), she wasassigned to the Bureau of Ordnance, where she worked inthe Computation Project at Harvard under pioneer computerdesigner Howard Aiken (see Aiken, Howard). Shebecame one of the first “coders” (that is, programmers) forthe Mark I. After the war, Hopper worked for a few yearsin Harvard’s newly established Computation Laboratory. In1949, however, she became senior mathematician at theEckert-Mauchly Corporation, the world’s first commercialcomputer company, where she helped with program designfor the famous UNIVAC. She stayed with what became theUNIVAC division under Remington Rand (later SperryRand) until 1971.While working with UNIVAC, Hopper’s main focus wason the development of programming languages that couldallow people to use symbolic names and descriptive statementsinstead of binary codes or the more cryptic forms ofassembly language (see assembler). In 1952, she developedA-0, the first compiler (that is, a program that could translatelanguage statements to the corresponding low-levelmachine instructions). She then developed A-2 (a compilerthat could handle mathematical expressions), and then in1957 she developed Flow-Matic. This was the first compilerGrace Murray Hopper created the first computer program compilerand was instrumental in the design and adoption of COBOL.When she retired, she was the first woman admiral in U.S. Navyhistory. (Unisys Corporation)that worked with English-like statements and was designedfor a business data processing environment.In 1959, Hopper joined with five other computer scientiststo plan a conference that would eventually result in thedevelopment of specifications for a “Common Business Language.”Her earlier work with Flow-Matic and her designinput played a key role in the development of what wouldbecome the COBOL language.Hopper retained her Navy commission and even afterher retirement in 1966 she was recalled to active duty towork on the Navy’s data processing needs. She finallyretired in 1986 with the rank of rear admiral. Hopper spokewidely about data processing issues, especially the need forstandards in computer language and architecture, the lackof which she said cost the government billions of dollars inwasted resources. Admiral Hopper died on January 1, 1992,in Arlington, Virginia.Hopper received numerous awards and honorary degrees,including the National Medal of Technology. (The navynamed a suitably high-tech Aegis destroyer after her in1996.) The Association for Computing Machines (ACM)created the Grace Murray Hopper Award to honor distinguishedyoung computer professionals. Hopper has becomea role model for many girls and young women consideringcareers in computing.