How did the phrase A bug in the computer get started?

Answer 1

This question has spawned a number of urban myths.

The term 'bug' was first used by Grace Hopper on September 9th, 1945 when a real bug, a moth, short-circuited an early computer on relay number 70 Panel F, of the MARK II Aiken Relay Calculator, in the Harvard University. The operators of the computer said they had "debugged" the computer, and ever since then the terms has not changed. (They actually finished building the computer in 1947, which was the year of the actual event.)

The most widely known is that Captain (later Admiral) Grace Hopper was busy debugging a program that she had written. Finding a moth squashed in her card deck, she quipped "this is the first real computer bug !"

This story gives the lie to the claim that this is where the name came from. If this was the first computer bug, why did she refer to it as the first real one ?

Come to that, why was she debugging her program before the moth was found?

The simple truth is that difficult to find troubles in machinery were already being called bugs by engineers prior to 1900. Tomas Edison may have been the first one to use the term in this sense, writing it in a notebook entry in 1876 regarding problems developing a system of multiplexing signals over a wire for telegraph.

Answer 2

The Bug

In 1947, Grace Murray Hopper was working on the Harvard University Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator (a primitive computer).

On the 9th of September, 1947, when the machine was experiencing problems, an investigation showed that there was a moth trapped between the points of Relay #70, in Panel F.

The operators removed the moth and affixed it to the log. (See the picture above.) The entry reads: "First actual case of bug being found."

(See the link at the bottom of this page for a much larger version of this picture.)

The word went out that they had "debugged" the machine and the term "debugging a computer program" was born.

Although Grace Hopper was always careful to admit that she was not there when it actually happened, it was one of her favorite stories.

it's actually in display in the smithsonian if i remember correctly

Answer 3

The computer bug came from back when computers used to be extremely large and do very little. You see there were large tubes on the computers and they would get clogged with bugs so now little problems on computers now days are referred to as bugs.

The term "bug" had been in use for any malfunction or error of a machine long before electronic digital computers existed.

Its first use referring to a computer problem was on the Harvard Mark II electromechanical computer, when a moth got smashed inside the contacts of a relay causing a failure. When the failure was located and the moth removed from the relay, the operator on that shift taped it to the logbook below the entry on the failure and labeled it First Computer Bug. That morning Grace Murray Hopper came on duty and read the logbook and thought it was a great story to tell every time she spoke somewhere. The first computer bug wasn't even in an electronic computer, the Harvard Mark II was electromechanical.

Answer 4

The term "bug" had been in use for any malfunction or error of a machine long before electronic digital computers existed.

Its first use referring to a computer problem was on the Harvard Mark II electromechanical computer, when a moth got smashed inside the contacts of a relay causing a failure. When the failure was located and the moth removed from the relay, the operator on that shift taped it to the logbook below the entry on the failure and labeled it First Computer Bug. That morning Grace Murray Hopper came on duty and read the logbook and thought it was a great story to tell every time she spoke somewhere. The first computer bug wasn't even in an electronic computer, the Harvard Mark II was electromechanical.

Answer 5

There a have been a few references to bugs in the computing field over the years. One of which came via Grace Hopper - who discovered a trapped (dead) moth within the workings of an early electro-mechanical computer. There is a detailed explanation in the Wikipedia article on the subject - See related link.

Answer 6

The story goes that Grace Hopper coined the term after she found a scorched moth in her computer.

Answer 7

Virus