Margaret Hamilton, NASA’s lead developer for Apollo program, stands next to all the code she wrote by hand that took humanity to the moon in 1969
Margaret Hamilton, NASA’s lead developer for Apollo program, stands next to all the code she wrote by hand that took humanity to the moon in 1969
I used to collect mechanical calculators.
You couldn’t calculate a re-entry vector with one but you could add a long list of numbers quickly and efficiently.
They were called comptometers.
The ads for them are fascinating:
https://www.jaapsch.net/mechcalc/comptometer_ads.htm
This one in particular… https://www.jaapsch.net/mechcalc/images/comptometer/ads/big/1910-07-02 The Argus (Melbourne).jpg
Pay seven pounds for some training and a guaranteed job as a skilled comptometer operator.