Talking to my parents, there was definitely a hierarchy between the two.
Although the programmers might have looked down on the operators as grunts, these people were in the privileged position of actually getting to interact with the machine directly, which is something.
You're pretty much right on re their exodus. Thompson's book, which I mentioned in my earlier comment, has a chapter called 'The ENIAC Girls Vanish'.
Although the programmers might have looked down on the operators as grunts, these people were in the privileged position of actually getting to interact with the machine directly, which is something.
You're pretty much right on re their exodus. Thompson's book, which I mentioned in my earlier comment, has a chapter called 'The ENIAC Girls Vanish'.