It’s got “Memory Tanks with 12,000 additional units of information”, assuming a “unit” is byte that’s 12 kB of information. That’s about one-tenth of a floppy disk, a floppy disk from twenty-fie years. Based on the other video (below) they might only be 3/4 of a byte :)
I’m really surprised the printer could do 600 lines per minute, that’s pretty fast for that time (I would think!) although it didn’t look much different from some large printers I’ve seen years later.
Admiral Grace hopper lived from December 9, 1907 to January 1, 1992 and had a lot more to do with computing than most names you know today.
“A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for. ”
She graduated from Vassar in Mathematics and Physics and got her Ph.D. from Yale in the same subjects. She to a leave of absence from Vasser, where she was an Associate Professor of Mathematics, and joined the Navy Reserve. I’ve got a few quotes of hers in this post. She’s also attributed to phrase “bugs” in the computer (or maybe “debugging”), but I’ve heard so many stories about that I’m not so sure but here’s a photo with notes.
She served on the Mark I computer programming staff at Harvard.
In 1949 she was a senior mathematician on the team developing the UNIVAC I.
A lot of her compiler work is said to be the basis of the COBOL computer language.
In the 1970s she pioneered the implementation of standards for computer languages (like COBOL and FORTRAN).
“It’s always easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.”
She was on 60 minutes in 1982, here’s part 1 and part 2, she’s pretty funny.
Here’s a video of her on Letterman (Oct. 2, 1986). She holds her own pretty good and explains how fast light and electricity can travel. It’s some of the same jokes from the 60 Minutes interview, but dumbed down for Dave.
In 1971 ACM created the Grace Murray Hopper Award which is awarded to the outstanding young (35 or younger) computer professional of the year, selected on the basis of a single recent major technical or service contribution. Be sure to click the link, you’ll see some familiar names (Wozniak, Joy, Kurzweil, and more).
“The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.”
Additional info on Admiral Hopper: There is a conference named in her honor Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. She’s received 47 honorary degrees. When she retired she was the oldest active person in the military! She was in the Navy for 43 years; from 1943-1966, 1967-1971, and 1972-1986. The Navy’s USS Hopper, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, is named after her.
It’s a great ad, but I’m wondering if everyone looking at it knows what the dial is for? Click for the full ad.
When I talk to younger kids at school they don’t actually know what “dial” means since all their phones have buttons. Sometimes I’ll find a kid who says their grandparents have a phone like that (actually they usually say “Grandma”).
Twenty years ago (maybe even fifteen) this would have been heaven. Imagine… Seven MB of removable storage…
I remember somewhere around that time some had hook a ten MB drive up to an Atari computer (via the joystick ports), I’m sure that was a $2,000.00 box at the time. We’ve come a long way since then. I’ve ten times that on my keychain and it’s a heck of a lot faster and smaller!
I got digital cookies today! I’d been feeling a little down so Kelly sent them to me! They were cookies in the shape of computers, mice, CDs and a PDA. My favorite was the PDA cookie. They were huge, about the size of 2 or 3 regular big cookies.
Admiral Grace hopper lived from December 9, 1907 to January 1, 1992 and had a lot more to do with computing than most names you know today. 
