[sramsay]

I believe some researchers have come to the conclusion that "the earliest extant program for a stored program digital computer" was not written by John von Neumann, but by his wife: Klára Dán von Neumann.

Knuth references a letter "in the possession of Dr. Herman H. Goldstein," but scholars making the case for Klara are usually referencing the archival materials at the LoC:

http://rs5.loc.gov/service/mss/eadxmlmss/eadpdfmss/1996/ms99...

I'm doing some research that involves this issue, and I'd be grateful to anyone who has any insight on this. There's a book called Klara and the Bomb, which is quite fascinating (and makes the claim for Klara), but that book leans more toward art than research scholarship.

I am aware that "firsts" are often hard to identify when it comes to the history of science and technology; I'm personally more interested in what these very early programs were being used for than who wrote them, per se. But I'd still like to know if Knuth is actually correct in his assumption.