Glenda Schroeder facts for kids

Glenda Schroeder is an American software engineer. She is famous for creating the very first "command-line shell." This is a way for people to talk to computers using text commands. She also helped write one of the first papers about email systems. She did all this while working at the MIT Computation Center in 1965.

Glenda Schroeder's Work

Creating the First Computer Shell

Before Glenda Schroeder, talking to computers was tricky. Early computer programs that let you type commands were hard to change. In 1964, a person named Louis Pouzin at the MIT Computation Center created a tool called RUNCOM. This tool helped computers run lists of commands.

Pouzin also came up with the word "shell." He used it to describe how you could use computer commands like a special language. He wrote about how to build this idea into a computer system called Multics.

When Pouzin went back to France in 1965, Glenda Schroeder took over. She worked with someone from General Electric to build the very first Multics shell. This shell was a very important step. It led to the Unix shell, which many computers still use today!

Helping Invent Early Email

Glenda Schroeder also worked on an early email system. She teamed up with Pat Crisman and Louis Pouzin. They created a system called "MAIL" for users on the Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) at MIT.

This system let users send short messages to each other. For example, CTSS could tell users that their files were safely backed up. People working on CTSS commands could also use it to talk to each other.

Each user had a "MAIL BOX" file. This file was private, so only the owner could read or delete their messages. This early system only allowed messages between people using the same computer. The idea of sending messages between different computers came later. Ray Tomlinson developed that idea in 1971.

See also

In Spanish: Glenda Schroeder para niños