Does Not Compute
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Does Not Compute
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Have some Grace and don't let it bug youAdditional commentary on this FAQ entry will be inserted here.
The moth was found trapped between points at Relay # 70, Panel F, of the Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator while it was being tested at Harvard University, 9 September 1945. The operators affixed the moth to the computer log, with the entry: "First actual case of bug being found." The bug was found while Grace Murray Hopper was second in charge of the project. She once related the events as follows, "Things were going badly; there was something wrong in one of the circuits of the long glass-enclosed computer," she said. "Finally, someone located the trouble spot and, using ordinary tweezers, removed the problem, a two-inch moth. From then on, when anything went wrong with a computer, we said it had bugs in it."
The term "bug" had already been use for quite a while at the time of this incident (See below on Edison). However, this event has been oft quoted by many as evidence Grace Hopper coined the term "bug." Although that is not true, what the team did do was to put out the word they had "debugged" the machine, thus introducing the terminology "debugging a computer program."
As the "Mother of Modern Computing," Rear Admiral Grace Hopper was a much sought after public speaker and did, indeed, relate the story often. At a speaking engagement in the late 1970's, someone questioned the voracity of Hopper's story. She said, "I referred them to my 1945 log book, now in the collection of Naval Surface Weapons Center, and they found the remains of that moth taped to the page in question."
In his book, "Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences," Random House,1996, Dr. Edward Tenner quotes Thomas Edison as using the term "bugs" as early as 1878, for flaws in a system. Tenner states the word was already a common "shop" term in Edison's time for unexpected systems faults. The carryover to computers (certainly complex systems) is almost unavoidable. Dr. Edward Tenner is a historian of science currently at the Smithsonian Institution. He holds an appointment in the Geology Department at Princeton. Tenner's reference may be the earliest citation of usage of the term. The earliest reference in the "Compact Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition;" Oxford University Press; 1991; ISBN 0-19-861258-3 also refers to Thomas Edison. Thomas Edison's usage is also supported in "The Historical Dictionary of American Slang;" J.E. Lighter, editor; Random House; Vol. I: A-G, 1994, ISBN 0-394-54427-7; Vol. II, H-O, 1997, ISBN 0-679-43464-X. Use of the word "bug" as a term for a "fault" may arise from the term being used as early as the 14th century to mean "an object of dread" derived from the Welsh word *bwg* for "hobgoblin" (Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology). Webster's 10th Collegiate Dictionary cites it as meaning "an unexpected defect, fault, flaw, or imperfection" with origins for that usage reaching back as far as 1622 and certainly not referring to computers. Grace Hopper's use of the term "bug" to describe the moth which caused the computer glitch at Harvard may point to her being a pun lover and playing off the already current use for the term. |
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