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From: lsmith@cs.umn.edu (Lance "Taylorism" Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: The term Bug
Message-ID: <1990Dec6.040323.16436@cs.umn.edu>
Date: 6 Dec 90 04:03:23 GMT
References: <7298@uklirb.informatik.uni-kl.de> <127@anaxagoras.ils.nwu.edu> <1990Dec6.012530.18666@rice.edu>
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, CSci dept.
Lines: 39

In <1990Dec6.012530.18666@rice.edu> jsd@boreal.rice.edu (Shawn Joel Dube) writes:
>In article <127@anaxagoras.ils.nwu.edu>, lynch@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu (Richard Lynch) writes:
>|> [Numerous postings about Grace Hopper and the term bug not included.]
>|> I heard *SOMEWHERE* that the first bug was in ENIAC or UNIVAC, and was, in 
>|> fact a bug that got into the machine and was fried by the wires and whose 
>|> carcass maintained contact, thus short-circuiting the machine.  I 
>|> sincerely hope that this is true, since it IS the story I've told to 
>|> several hundred high school students. :-)
>|> 

>You're right.  I read the same thing in a Popular Science (c. 82-84).

I hate to keep beating a dead moth, but you can find the answer to this one
in the Annals of the History of Computing. The general agreement is that the
term bug goes back way before computing (Thomas Edison uses it.) Even debug
goes back before computing. 

The first literal bug was a moth that got stuck in a relay in the Mark II
computer which is what Grace Hopper is talking of. There is a picture of the
log book where the moth has been taped in one of the issues of the Annals
(I think vol. 10 no. 4, but check the index first.) The moth didn't really
fry the system, just caused some errors. As I said above, I believe the term
was used before the moth was found.

The Mark II came after the ENIAC and before the UNIVAC. It delivered to
Dahlgren Naval Proving Ground in 1948. Like the Harvard Mark I it was an
electro-mechanical computer, but was about 12 times as powerful as its
predecessor, doing a whopping 30 instructions per second and containing
100 relay registers. [Source is Giant Brains by E. C. Berkeley, 1949.]

Sorry to rehash this again. Perhaps we can get up a list of FAQs. I notice
TECO is making the rounds again. BTW, I'd also like to put in my plug again
for comp.history since the powers that be here (U of MN) are threating to
remove much of the alt hierarchy. 
-- 
Lance "Simon" Smith and his dancing bear
Oh, who would think a boy and bear could be well accepted everywhere...
REPLYTONET: lsmith@cs.umn.edu
Send monetary units to: PO Box 13345, Dinkytown Station, Minneapolis, MN 55414


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