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Anniversary of the First Computer Bug
aheath writes "According to the
US Naval Historical Center the first computer bug was logged on September 9, 1945 at 15:45: "Moth 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". They put out the word that they had "debugged" the machine, thus introducing the term "debugging a computer program".
The Wikipedia has a "computer bug" entry that lists some other "famous bugs" including the fictional HAL 9000 bug. What is your favorite computer bug story?"
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
The The Jargon File covers this and includes a picture of the bug in the entry on "bug" and states:
John.To be specific, that first bug was recorded by future Admiral "Amazing" Grace Hopper, a (rare female) Line Navy officer (as opposed to a WAVE or Naval Reserve officer.) Her name has gone on to one of the most modern guided missile destroyers. She was quite a remarkable woman, read up on her career if you get the chance.
"I am an Adept of Tantric VAX."
It's not, really. It's just a popular legend that people like to believe, like the one that Abner Doubleday invented baseball (noone knows who invented baseball or when since similar games had been played for centuries).
The word bug was in use in the manufacturing and industrial world, meaning what it means today - some little pain in the ass or defect with the system or product.
I guess this could be the origin of "computer bug", but thats kind of a stretch. It's just a cute story profs like to tell freshmen.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I still think the bug in converting between metric and imperial units causing a billion dollar Mars probe to crash is the top one.
Regards,
--
*Art
Sorry to reply to myself, but here's a link to the history of the term 'bug'.
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
Here you go, with video.
Trolling is a art,
"The text of the log entry (from September 9, 1947), reads 1545 Relay #70 Panel F (moth) in relay. First actual case of bug being found. This wording establishes that the term was already in use at the time in its current specific sense -- and Hopper herself reports that the term bug was regularly applied to problems in radar electronics during WWII.
Indeed, the use of bug to mean an industrial defect was already established in Thomas Edison's time, and a more specific and rather modern use can be found in an electrical handbook from 1896 (Hawkin's New Catechism of Electricity, Theo. Audel & Co.) which says: The term 'bug' is used to a limited extent to designate any fault or trouble in the connections or working of electric apparatus. It further notes that the term is said to have originated in quadruplex telegraphy and have been transferred to all electric apparatus."
Anyway, the blurb said that although it may have been the first computer bug, the term 'bug' had been used to refer to technical problems in radio operations for many years prior.
There is a reason for everything. Sometimes that reason just sucks.
The term "bug" in the technical sense was used long before that. That's just a famous episode of an actual bug causing a bug. Look at the history of the bug for more information.
The log entry with the moth is from September 9, 1947, not 1945.
From the OED:
b A defect or fault in a machine, plan, or the like. orig. U.S.
.. the Theroy of Schrodinger's cat...where by if you put a cat in a box, its not truely dead until you look at it again...
That has got to be the most brief, yet entirely confusing description of that theory I've ever heard! =)
Some more facts may help clear up some confusion.
Except, of course, to be literal, a moth (order Lepidoptera) is not a bug (order Hemiptera).
Separately, Tenner points out that 'bug' was used by telegraphers as the name for hidden faults in circuits, and that it also had a literal meaning for operators, since Western Union offices were notoriously dirty and insect-infested. In 1868, Thomas Edison, who started as a telegraph operator, invented an early version of an electrical zapper to debug his desktop.
It was one Grace Hopper/A> who actually coined the term. One hell of an impressive Bio, to say the least, and there's a lot more on Google
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Sorry. Hit "Submit" instead of "Preview". Fixed links (now *with* preview): Grace Hopper and Google
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
The actuall real bug was taped into the book because it was an actual *real* bug. The Pun was intended back then aswell. The term debugging had been used earlier when debugging ENIAC (real bugs too) and finding unusual and nerving errors.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Yup. It's on display in the Smithsonian. (Or was, anyway.)
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
b. A defect or fault in a machine, plan, or the like. orig. U.S.
1889 Pall Mall Gaz. 11 Mar 1/1 Mr. Edison, I was informed, had been up the two previous nights discovering 'a bug' in his phonograph-an expression for solving a difficulty, and implying that some imaginary insect has secreted itself inside and is causing all the trouble.
Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition
Quoted from Chapter 5 of The Practice of Programming, by Brian W. Kernighan and Rob Pike.
Fellowship 9/11
No - the word 'bug' was in common usage, as the journal entry makes clear if you think about it.
'First actual case of bug being found.'
Do you think they'd have written this if the word 'bug' didn't already exist?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
For those who don't get the joke:
Voracity - excessive desire to eat derived from latin vorare to swallow, to eat.
Veracity - Conformity to fact or truth; accuracy or precision derived from verax speaking the truth.
Case #1: Computers failing due to overheating. Turned out the AC vents were clogged. Reason? Wasp nest clogging the AC vents, needed to debug the vents. From a friend that had to do the debugging. Case #2: Ants crawling into computer (Taught me not to eat while working on the insides of my PC) Had to clean out peanut butter & jelly from inside my keyboard once. Keys stuck too much. Case #3: Rats nests inside the computers chewing on cables etc. Big problem at one Texas co-lo. Had to replace all the ethernet cabling. From a site I was consulting at. Case #4: Little kid decides to feed the computer his milk. Milk stopped the computer from booting, but did not fry anything. Worked after we swabbed everything down with alcohol and washed the case off. A friend dropped off the computer for us to fix after finding out it did not work.
Actually, the article is the truth. The person who wrote the logbook was Grace Hopper, a computer programmer for the military. (She went on to author the COBAL language and retired an Admiral from the Navy.)
Not only did she find the problem and coin the term "computer bug" but she was one of the first women in computing. An accomplishment in itself.
>The Wikipedia has a "computer bug" entry that lists some other "famous bugs" including the fictional HAL 9000 bug.
.36 seconds during the 4-day continuous siege, the error increasing with elapsed time since the system was turned on. This software flaw prevented real-time tracking. The specifications called for aircraft speeds, not Mach 6 missiles, for 14-hour continuous performance, not 100. Patched software arrived via air one day later.
Yeah, it lists them, but doesn't really link to good stories -- so...
An error in a single FORTRAN statement resulted in the loss of the first American probe to Venus.
Software reboot during the Apollo 11 landing forced Armstrong to manually land the lunar lander.
An Iraqi Scud missile hit Dhahran barracks, leaving 28 dead and 98 wounded. The incoming missile was not detected by the Patriot defenses, whose clock had drifted
The Ariane 5 satellite launcher malfunction was caused by a faulty software exception routine resulting from a bad 64-bit floating point to 16-bit integer conversion.
lots more here and here.
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
Somehow, saying "First actual case of bug being found" seems fake to me.
No, the term "bugs" meaning "faults in a system" was in use at that time. There's mention of "bugs" as faults in a system in one of Asimov's robot stories from 1940.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke