Margaret Hamilton, RIP

Janine Liberty (Hacker News, NASA, NYT, WSJ):

Margaret Hamilton, a profoundly influential computer scientist best known for leading the software engineering team at MIT’s Instrumentation Lab during NASA’s Apollo program, died on Sep. 30. She was 90.

A computing pioneer who authored over 130 publications, Hamilton helped to establish software engineering as a dedicated discipline.

[…]

Moments before the Eagle module was set to land on the lunar surface, the onboard computer raised the alarm. It had detected a 1202 error: The computer was overloaded due to a fault in a hardware switch, and it was possible the system would not be able to handle the complex landing procedure.

But Hamilton and her team had engineered priority-driven software, able to shut down unnecessary background tasks in order to prioritize mission-critical tasks. Houston trusted Hamilton’s software and allowed the mission to proceed, and two men walked on the moon for the first time.

Dave DeGraw:

The following is an excerpt from a textbook called Fluency With Information Technology: Skills, Concepts, & Capabilities, 7th Edition ISBN 0-13-444872-3

At the time of publishing, the Wikipedia page for Margaret Hamilton has an important quote about the origin of the term “software engineering”. I was moved by this and wanted to add it to my /quotes page, but needed to verify the source of the quote. I was bothered that the source came from an interview given for an out-of-print textbook that as far as I can tell is unavailable to legally obtain. The interview is also not published in later editions of the book.

Fortunately, I was able to find the complete interview and I am publishing that excerpt here under fair use doctrine for educational, archival, and personal informational purposes only.

The Computer History Museum has an article and a full oral history.

Previously:

• Artemis II’s Fault-Tolerant Computer
• Testing the Apollo Spacecraft
• The Apollo Guidance Computer
• Margaret Hamilton and Apollo 11
• That Would Never Happen

Craft History Interview Programming Rest in Peace Video

What a Broken Wrist Taught Me About iOS 27 Dictation and macOS Voice Control

Adam Engst:

Apple has significantly improved dictation in iOS 27 by adding a few capabilities for editing text from the Voice Control system. In other words, Apple has finally done some of the things I requested in “How iOS and macOS Dictation Can Learn from Voice Control’s Dictation” (31 August 2020). Remember, dictation is what you get when you tap the microphone button on the keyboard, while Voice Control is an all-encompassing system that you turn on in Settings > Accessibility > Voice Control. The problem with leaving Voice Control on permanently is that it’s constantly listening and thus inserting text when you don’t want that, and at times I have felt that its dictation isn’t as good.

Most notably, when you’re using iOS’s regular dictation, you can now change the case of words and phrases by saying “Capitalize phrase” or “Lowercase phrase.” Incorrect capitalization of words drives me up the wall. Equally useful is the ability to fix misheard or misspoken words by saying “Replace phrase1 with phrase2.” Most other Voice Control commands aren’t available in dictation, but you can say “Select phrase” and “Undo that.”

[…]

Unfortunately, while Apple added some of Voice Control’s capabilities to dictation in iOS 27, it didn’t extend that effort to macOS 27 Golden Gate. Put simply, when you use dictation in macOS, you don’t have access to any text-editing commands.

Previously:

• Apple’s 2026 Accessibility Feature Preview
• 2025 Apple Vision Accessibility Report Card

Accessibility Dictation iOS iOS 27 Mac macOS 27 Golden Gate Voice Control