Plenty of old school programmers were not "outcast nerds" at all, but people who happened to stumble on the subject. The whole nerd thing is something that happened mainly at certain universities and then when computing become more popular in high-schools. Women have far more than men been interested in things that doesn't mean money. Just that if you're a book, arts, craft and/or music nerd it doesn't count. By the way, when did computers ever not bring financial incentives? Back when mostly women did it maybe...