The counterculture saw computers as tools in service to corporate and government power. Providing everyday people with access to the machines was a radical act.
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Known as “St. Jude,” Jude Milhon was born in 1939 and became a self-taught programmer and advocate for civil rights and women in computing. In 1973, she and other hackers created Community Memory in Berkeley, California, a computerized bulletin board that was one of the first public computer network systems. Anyone could post messages on the terminal, which was connected to a mainframe timeshared computer the collective owned in San Francisco.
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The Community Memory service offered bulletin boards, messages, classified ads, and more. Some were online extensions of the physical bulletin boards that were an institution in the record store in Berkeley where the terminal was located. Musicians quickly adapted to the machine to post information about concerts, to sell instruments, and connect.
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Jude was committed to using her technical and writing skills to encourage women to join the world of computing. “Girls need modems!”
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