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The Shoulders of Giants

"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Every program on this site — every BASIC statement, every compiler pass, every pixel — exists because people before us figured out how to make machines do what had never been done. This page is where we keep their names, their stories, and what they taught us. Some entries are tributes to the living; some are memorials. All of them are history worth knowing.

Margaret Hamilton seated inside an Apollo command module mockup, reaching up toward the switch panel, 1969
Hamilton inside an Apollo command module mockup, 1969. Photo: NASA (public domain).
In Memoriam

Margaret Hamilton

August 17, 1936 – September 30, 2026 · Computer scientist · Apollo flight software lead · Mother of "software engineering"

Margaret Hamilton led the MIT team that wrote the onboard flight software for the Apollo program — the code that guided nine crews to the Moon and back on a computer with less memory than a digital watch. She did it while inventing the discipline as she went: she is the person who coined the term software engineering, at a time when the phrase was treated as a joke.

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In the descent to the Sea of Tranquility, when Apollo 11's computer began blaring 1201/1202 alarms, the software she designed shed low-priority work and kept flying the landing — the design choice she had fought for proving itself in public. She coined software engineering when people laughed at the phrase; the discipline took the name because her work made it true. She later founded Higher Order Software and Hamilton Technologies, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.

Her full biography — Apollo, the 1201/1202 story, her companies and honors →

JoAnn Morgan at her console in Firing Room 1 during the Apollo 11 launch — the only woman in the room, July 16, 1969
Morgan at her console during the Apollo 11 liftoff — the only woman in Firing Room 1. Photo: NASA (public domain).
Pioneer

JoAnn H. Morgan

Born December 4, 1940 · Aerospace engineer · Apollo 11 instrumentation controller · 45 years at NASA

JoAnn Morgan went to work at Cape Canaveral the day after high school — in 1958, before NASA existed — and spent the next forty-five years inside the American space program. On the morning of July 16, 1969 she sat at a console in Firing Room 1 as Apollo 11's instrumentation controller: the only woman in the room where the Moon launch was run.

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When a test supervisor told her women weren't allowed on console, her director Karl Sendler settled it in one line: "JoAnn, you get the test done. Bring me the data." She then collected nearly every "first woman" title Kennedy Space Center had — first female engineer, first woman division chief, first woman senior executive, the first woman to direct Safety and Mission Assurance — and finished as the center's associate deputy director, retiring in August 2003. President Clinton named her a Meritorious Executive in 1995 and 1998; Vice President Gore presented her the Presidential Distinguished Executive Rank Award in 1999. Her verdict on the famous firing-room photograph: "I hope that photos like the ones I'm in don't exist anymore."

Her full story — Cape Canaveral 1958, Apollo 11, and forty-five years of firsts →

Among the Giants

The company grows. In time this page will honor more of computing's giants — those still with us and those we've lost. If someone belongs among them, tell us their name.

Sources & Further Reading