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From: jdd@magic.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Re: The origin of 'debugging'
Message-ID: <158@magic.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 30-May-85 17:13:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: magic.158
Posted: Thu May 30 17:13:51 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Jun-85 04:04:07 EDT
References: <718@druor.UUCP>
Reply-To: jdd@magic.UUCP (John DeTreville)
Organization: DEC Systems Research, Palo Alto
Lines: 27
Summary: 

> "'Eniac', the first important digital computer, never lived
> up to its potential, because tubes kept burning out in the 
> middle of its computations....
>             ...The warmth and soft light of the tubes also 
> attracted 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'."

From "A Supplement to The Oxford English Dictionary" (1972):

    bug, s.b.[2]  Add: ...

    4. In various slang uses. ...

    b. A defect or fault in a machine, plan or the like.  orig. U.S.

    1889 Pall Mall Gaz. 11 Mar 1/1  Mr. Edison, I was informed, had
    been up the two previous nights discovering `a bug' in his
    phonograph--an expression for solving a difficulty, and implying
    that some imaginary insect has secreted itself inside and is
    causing all the trouble.  1935 Jrnl. R. Aeornaut. Soc XXXIX. 43
    Casting, forging and riveting are processes hundreds of years old,
    and, to use an Americanism, `have the bugs ironed out of them'....

Cheers,
John ("Mr. Know-It-All") DeTreville
DEC SRC, Palo Alto