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?"

Comments

R-A-I-D?!?!

[inertia187]

Somehow, saying "First actual case of bug being found" seems fake to me. It's like finding cavalry sword from the first world war with the inscription, "Corporal James Smith, Third Mounted Infantry, World War One." You'd know that even if the sword was real, the inscription was years after WWII, making it less valuable, and lessening it's voracity.

Or is this the first actual case because they suspected before there were actual bugs in the system but never found them?

Then again maybe it was just prophetic. Like NASA when the STS missions launch(ed): "3...2...1...Liftoff! [message about this mission and it's 'first' for space here]"

term "Bug" was already in use

[asmithmd1]

By the way they logged the bug, "first actual case of bug being found" the term was already in use and they were pointing out the irony that the bug in this case was a real bug

Re:and you forgot...

[Anonymous Coward]

It depends. If he was trying to show that the SCO jokes are as old and tired as the Al Gore jokes then he is very witty. Otherwise he is just a moron.

Usage of term predated moth

[siskbc]

It's where the term "bug", as we now know it, came from. Thus, that was the "first bug". Sure there were problems with the code/vacuum tubes/whatever before, but they never called it a "bug" until then.

Re-read parent - as he says, the way in which they wrote the log entry wouldn't make sense if that were true. They were being sarcastic when they affixed the moth to the log book, writing "First actual case of bug being found." This strongly implies that things were called "bugs" previously, but that they weren't literally insects. These guys had a sense of humor.

So the term was in use before these guys found the insect - this is simply the first incidence of the insect as in the urban legend, which postdates the original usage.