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From: weaver
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: The term Bug
Message-ID: <1990Dec6.183532.9162@weitek.COM>
Date: 6 Dec 90 18:35:32 GMT
References: <7298@uklirb.informatik.uni-kl.de> <127@anaxagoras.ils.nwu.edu> <2351@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
Sender: weaver@weitek.COM (mike weaver)
Reply-To: weaver@weitek.UUCP (Michael Weaver)
Organization: WEITEK Corp. Sunnyvale Ca.
Lines: 13

Grace Hopper is sometimes credited with inventing the term bug,
referring to a defect in a program or hardware. The evidence for this
is a log page where she taped in a moth that was caught in a relay,
causing a program not to work.

I have seen a reproduction of the log page, however, and to
paraphrase (since I don't have it here):

    "Finally traced down that problem to a real 'bug' :-)"

It seemed clear to me that she thought it was funny that her 'bug'
turned out to be a literal bug, and that term bug was used
in the sense of a program problem before the moth incident.