Ada Lovelace was born 200 years ago today. To some she is a great hero in the history of computing; to others an overestimated minor figure. I’ve been curious for a long time what the real story is. And in preparation for her bicentennial, I decided to try to solve what for me has always been the “mystery of Ada”.
It was much harder than I expected. Historians disagree. The personalities in the story are hard to read. The technology is difficult to understand. The whole story is entwined with the customs of 19th-century British high society. And there’s a surprising amount of misinformation and misinterpretation out there.
But after quite a bit of research—including going to see many original documents—I feel like I’ve finally gotten to know Ada Lovelace, and gotten a grasp on her story. In some ways it’s an ennobling and inspiring story; in some ways it’s frustrating
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Fantastic Women Series: First Computer Programmer
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, was born on December 10, 1815. She was the daughter of the famous poet Lord Byron and his wife Anne Isabella Noel Byron. However, being Lord Byron’s only legitimate child is not her claim to fame.
Ada Lovelace was an extremely brilliant woman, who excelled in mathematics, and today she is widely acknowledged as the first computer programmer.
Ada’s parents separated when she was only five weeks old. Her father did not attempt to see his daughter thereafter, and she did not have a relationship with him. However, she was very conscious of being “Lord Byron’s Daughter”.
Byron died when she was eight years old and her mother remained the only influential figure in her life, although their relationship was not good. Ada was mainly left in her maternal grandmother’s care but her mother encouraged and promoted her curiosity in mathematics and logic, in order to keep her interests