Origin of the word BUG

[Ori Idan]

I am interested in any story about the origin of the word bug.

Ori Idan
o...@otidan.co.il

[Kalani Cotner]

Ori Idan wrote:

In the olden days when computers were run on vacuum tubes. The light
that the tubes produced attracted flies and such into the machine.
Eventually these insects would get into the hardware and cause a crash.
Hence the term 'a bug in the system'.

[Marty Leisner]

[Posted and mailed]

In article <34CD790C...@mail.utexas.edu>,

I recently read (can't reference now) about how a New Jersey
newspaper in the late 1800's talked about how Thomas Edison was
getting out the bugs in his light bulb.

There's a story of how Grace Murray Hopper (Mark IV?) found a bug
in the vacuum tapes and then taped it to the log book.

--
marty
lei...@sdsp.mc.xerox.com
The Feynman problem solving Algorithm
1) Write down the problem
2) Think real hard
3) Write down the answer
Murray Gell-mann in the NY Times

[Michael W. Moran]

Kalani Cotner wrote:
>
> Ori Idan wrote:
>
> > I am interested in any story about the origin of the word bug.
> >
> > Ori Idan
> > o...@otidan.co.il
>
> In the olden days when computers were run on vacuum tubes. The light
> that the tubes produced attracted flies and such into the machine.
> Eventually these insects would get into the hardware and cause a crash.
> Hence the term 'a bug in the system'.

I was taught that the term came into being thanks to the late Admiral
Grace Hopper of the U.S. Navy, one of the pioneers of computing. Very
early computers ran on relays, and one day the computer crashed because
a moth became stuck between the contacts of a relay. I believe there is
an archive somewhere containing Adm. Hoppers original handwritten report
of the incident, complete with the moth taped to the page.

[Peter da Silva]

In article <1998Jan28....@news.wrc.xerox.com>,

Marty Leisner <lei...@sdsp.mc.xerox.com> wrote:
> There's a story of how Grace Murray Hopper (Mark IV?) found a bug
> in the vacuum tapes and then taped it to the log book.

Back in 1978 I visited Washington and on display in the Smithsonian was the
very log book and moth. It had been removed from a relay and was pasted
into the book with a note that it was "the first case of an actual bug found
in a computer".

The story was publicised by Admiral Hopper, but it wasn't her bug.

Some years later I mentioned this to Eric Raymond, current editor of the New
Hackers' Dictionary, and he was able to finally locate the moth in the Naval
Museum, and was instrumental in getting it returned to the Smithsonian.

I assume that you can still see it there today.

--
Insert cool quote here.