Zahlen, bitte! IBM's apology after 52 years

Computer scientist Lynn Conway passed away on June 9, 2024 at the age of 86 following two heart attacks. In memory of the groundbreaking VSLI pioneer, we have updated and republished the Figures, please! about Conway from 2020.

In an online event at the end of October 2020, IBM apologized to computer scientist Lynn Conway after 52 years. The company had dismissed Conway without notice in 1968 when it became known that she wanted to undergo permanent gender reassignment surgery as a transsexual.

In 1969, Conway began her second career under the name Lynn Conway, but kept her CV a secret until 1999. She came out when historians from IBM's Watson Research Center investigated the ACS project (Advanced Computing Systems). In 2000, however, IBM President Lou Gerstner could not bring himself to make the company apologize. Lynn Conway, who had already campaigned for women's standing in IT, became a prominent campaigner for the rights of transsexuals in society.

Zahlen, bitte!

In this section, we present amazing, impressive, informative and funny figures ("Zahlen") from the fields of IT, science, art, business, politics and, of course, mathematics every Tuesday. The wordplay "Zahlen, bitte!" for a section about numbers is based on the ambiguity of the German word "Zahlen." On one hand, "Zahlen" can be understood as a noun in the sense of digits and numerical values, which fits the theme of the section. On the other hand, the phrase "Zahlen, bitte!" is reminiscent of a waiter's request in a restaurant or bar when they are asked to bring the bill. Through this association, the section acquires a playful and slightly humorous undertone that catches the readers' attention and makes them curious about the presented numbers and facts.

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A dismissal with drastic consequences

With the online event "Tech Trailblazer and Transgender Pioneer: Lynn Conway in conversation with Diane Gherson", attended by 1200 IBM employees, IBM officially apologized to computer scientist Lynn Conway. Diane Gherson, the company's head of human resources, issued the apology. Conway has written an autobiographical account of the drastic consequences her dismissal from IBM had for her. She was socially ostracized, her marriage ended in divorce and she had to start again as a computer scientist.

Born in 1938, Lynn Conway felt like a woman who had to live in a boy's body from an early age. In the 1950s, she experimented with hormones, but had to stop her experiments. She worked as a programmer on IBM's ACS project and was the lead author of the report on "Dynamic Sheduling Instructions" in February 1966.

Conway's life changed at a stroke when a report on transsexual surgery appeared in the New York Times in November 1966. Conway contacted the German-born doctor Harry Benjamin, who was mentioned in the article. Benjamin had been involved early on in the World League for Sexual Reform for the rights of homosexuals and transsexuals. In 1966, Benjamin published the book "The Transsexual Phenomenon", in which he classified the predisposition to transsexuality.

Lynn Conway belonged to the category for which Benjamin advocated surgery as well as hormone treatment. This took place in Mexico. The team at IBM's ACS project wanted to keep the womanization a secret and retain her as a new employee, but management reported to Thomas Watson Jr – and he gave her summary dismissal. The ACS was to become IBM's new supercomputer, so he did not want to tolerate any "scandalous stories". The RS/6000 was finally realized from this ambitious project.

A second career

The fact that Lynn Conway's story does not have to be told on the Transgender Day of Remembrance is due to the fact that after a few jobs as a programmer, Lynn Conway ended up at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center, which opened in 1970. Here, together with Carver Mead, she developed the VLSI architecture and co-wrote the classic "Introduction to VLSI Systems", published in 1980, which not only inspired numerous start-ups, but was also regarded as a standard work for chip designers. Very-large-scale integration (VLSI) had a fundamental influence on chip development, as it enabled enormous miniaturization and the Mead-Conway revolution went around the world: as early as 1983, over 120 universities were offering VLSI courses and VLSI still plays a decisive role in chip development today.

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In 1989, Conway became a professor at the University of Michigan and was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering. It was at the university that engineer Charles Vest discovered a gap in her CV. As President of the Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Vest tried to persuade the then IBM President Lou Gerstner to apologize to Conway in 2000, but he refused after some deliberation.

Lynn Conway was all the more pleased to receive other awards. She is one of the people on the Stonewall of 40 trans heroes. In 2014, she was named the most influential LGBTQ person in American culture by Time magazine. In 2020, something wonderful happened: IBM apologized. In 2023, she was inducted into the National Inventors Hall Of Fame. In addition, the 16-page comic Lines in the Sand: The Lynn Conway Story (Unsung Heroes of the Information Age) about her life story was published in the same year.

Lynn Conway died at the age of 86 as a result of two heart attacks on June 9, 2024 at her home in Jackson, Michigan.

(dahe)