Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!agate!saturn!ucscb.UCSC.EDU!unknown From: unknown@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (The Unknown User) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple Subject: Re: Bugs Message-ID: <9317@saturn.ucsc.edu> Date: 5 Oct 89 01:25:01 GMT References: Sender: usenet@saturn.ucsc.edu Reply-To: unknown@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (The Unknown User) Organization: UCSC Undergrads Lines: 33 In article davidbrierley@lynx.northeastern.edu writes: > We can't resist telling the story of where the term _bug_ comes from. > The MARK II comuter (one of the first modern comuters) used vacuum > tubes, and tubes generate a lot of heat. For this reason the > windows were left open in the computer room. Tubes burn out > frequently so a whole crew did nothing but test circuits and replace > tubes. One day when the machine was down...they discovered that a > moth had wandered in, been caught in a relay and, in so dong, had > caused a short circuit. The bug was removed, the relay reaired, and > the MARK II was up again. Grace Hooer (she is one of the most > important forces in the development of high-level languages) > remarked, "First successful debugging," and the moth was taped to > the log book. It remains there today. This isn't a very important addition, but you mentioned you made typos...But the lady's name is Grace Hopper... I believe she's a Rear Admiral or something like that. I don't know if she's still alive... (She's pretty old) Before I had heard about her in this context, I'd seen her on some PBS "learn about computers" show... She's also been on Late Night with David Letterman at least once and made the pretty well known statement that "one nanosecond equals 11 inches".. Obviously she means that that's the distance light travels in a nanosecond. If you want another book to hear a lot of other interesting stories about the early days/origins/etc of computers, get "The Digital Deli"...I hope that's the right name...It's a few years old... It has things on all the well known people like Woz & Jobs & Captain Crunch, etc, but also has other things... I believe it's written by "The Lunch Group" or some other name for a group of people. Very non-exact, eh? -- unknown@ucscb.ucsc.edu