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From: macrakis@harvard.ARPA (Stavros Macrakis)
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Re: The origin of 'debugging'
Message-ID: <148@harvard.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 29-May-85 15:37:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: harvard.148
Posted: Wed May 29 15:37:38 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 31-May-85 03:09:51 EDT
References: <718@druor.UUCP>
Organization: Aiken Comp. Lab., Harvard
Lines: 15

> ...  moths, which would fly through ENIAC's innards and 
> cause short circuits.  Ever since, the process of fixing 
> computer problems has been known as 'debugging'."
>                                 The Chip by T.R. Reid
> 				Reprinted by `INC' Magazine

This is a lot of rubbish.  You will discover (if you bother to look
in a historical dictionary), that the words `bug' and `debug' had
been used long before the Eniac (and actually this little piece of
folklore goes back to the Harvard Mark I, I believe) to mean a
problem, and getting rid of the problem.

And of course the message does not belong in net.general (twice!).

	-s