Stalking the elusive computer bug
Kidwell, P.A.
Smithsonian Inst., Nat. Museum of American History, Washington, DC;
This paper appears in: Annals of the History of Computing, IEEE
Publication Date: Oct-Dec 1998
Volume: 20,
Issue: 4
On page(s): 5-9
ISSN: 1058-6180
References Cited: 33
CODEN: IAHCEX
INSPEC Accession Number: 6081995
Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109/85.728224
Current Version Published: 2002-08-06
Abstract
Stalking computer bugs, that is to say, finding errors in computer
hardware and software, occupies and has occupied much of the time and
ingenuity of the people who design, build, program and use computers.
The author considers the origin of the word bug. From at least the time
of Thomas Edison, U.S. engineers have used the word bug to refer to
flaws in the systems they developed. This short word conveniently
covered a multitude of possible problems. It also suggested that
difficulties were small and could be easily corrected. IBM engineers who
installed the ASSC Mark I at Harvard University in 1944 taught the
phrase to the staff there. Grace Murray Hopper used the word with
particular enthusiasm in documents relating to her work. In 1947, when
technicians building the Mark II computer at Harvard discovered a moth
in one of the relays, they saved it as the first actual case of a bug
being found
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