Moth in relay! Urban myth?
Brad Sherman
I have heard a number of versions of a story about a moth
flying into a relay of an early electro-mechanical computer.
The moth gets taped into the system log book.
The use of "bug" meaning computer problem is born.
Two questions:
Can someone attest to moth in the logbook story?
(First- or second- hand sources preferred.)
I find it hard to believe that this was the first time
that an insect jammed a relay. Is this really the origin
of this meaning of bug?
--
Brad Sherman (b...@alfa.berkeley.edu)
Sam Bassett RCD
The moth-in-the-relay story was told in the first person by Grace
Murray Hopper, and the moth itself is on display in the logbook, wherever
it is kept at present. She has told this story many times, in many
forums, including, I believe, the book "A History of Computing in the
Twentieth Century".
The term "bug" was used before World War II for a defect or
problem in a mechanical device -- it is just that this is the first
documented _computer_ bug!
Sam'l Bassett, Sterling Software @ NASA Ames Research Center,
Moffett Field CA 94035 Work: (415) 694-4792; Home: (415) 969-2644
sa...@well.sf.ca.us sa...@ames.arc.nasa.gov
<Disclaimer> := 'Sterling doesn't _have_ opinions -- much less NASA!'
Bill Poser
running LISP) dead due to a mouse that had gotten itself decapitated in
the power supply fan. Just think, if events had occured in a different
order we might refer to programs as having "mice".
David McIntyre
>
>I have heard a number of versions of a story about a moth
>flying into a relay of an early electro-mechanical computer.
>The moth gets taped into the system log book.
>The use of "bug" meaning computer problem is born.
>
Well, I won't try to make you believe this, I will just tell you who
told me the story: Commodore Grace Hopper! Well, she was there!
She was running that computer! She did a lot of firsts! I am not
going to tell her she is wrong!
-Dave
Dave "mr question" McIntyre | "....say you're thinking about a plate
mcin...@turing.cs.rpi.edu | of shrimp.....and someone says to
office : 518-276-8633 | you 'plate,' or 'shrimp'......"
Bob Janssens
>
>I have heard a number of versions of a story about a moth
>flying into a relay of an early electro-mechanical computer.
>The moth gets taped into the system log book.
>The use of "bug" meaning computer problem is born.
>
The Oxford English Dictionary ( second edition ) quotes the use of "bug" as
"A defect or fault in a machine, plan, or the like" as early as 1889.
Interestingly, it seems Thomas Edison may have coined the term:
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.
Bob Janssens b...@csg.uiuc.edu or b-jan...@uiuc.edu
Center for Reliable and High Performance Computing, University of Illinois
Jean-Francois Lamy
Systems 1985-1986" (John Wiley & Sons) has a photograph of a 1945 log book page
for the Mark II with a largish moth taped to it. The entry reads "Relay #70,
panel F, (moth) in relay, first actual case of bug being found".
This would lend credence to the story, but also suggests the term was already
in use at the time.
Jean-Francois Lamy la...@cs.utoronto.ca, uunet!cs.utoronto.ca!lamy
Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4
Johnny Zweig
My understanding was that the term "bug" came from telephony, in which the
buzzing noises heard on bad lines was jokingly attributed to bugs buzzing
in the lines. Maybe this, in turn, comes from the use in audio recording
technology cited by the OED -- namely, bugs making buzzing sounds on shoddy
recordings.
The 1945 log-book was a good joke since they actually *found* a real live
(rather, dead) bug that was causing the problem. Hacker humor.
-Johnny Bug
Brian Kantor
large spider had crawled into the final cavity and shorted out the
high voltage. The computer controlling the transmitter had correctly
shut it down, but couldn't tell us that it had a bug....
The technician's remark upon finding the carbonized spider was "no
wonder it doesn't work: the chief engineer died!"
- Brian
John G. Hardie
I'm told (I wasn't there) that the Bates Linear Accelerator in Middleton
Mass. was brought down (yes, the entire facility) by a stray cat which
managed to touch both terminals on the 10 MW (that's MEGAwatts folks)
primary transformer. Supposedly it was quite a mess and took several
days to get everything back up again.
Anyone know the details?
John
--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
John G. Hardie jg...@unix.cis.pitt.edu
Dept. of Physics, Univ of Pittsburgh jg...@vms.cis.pitt.edu
Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most.
Ben Cranston
> flying into a relay of an early electro-mechanical computer.
> The moth gets taped into the system log book.
> The use of "bug" meaning computer problem is born.
> (First- or second- hand sources preferred.)
I guess being a packrat has its uses. I'm looking at a much-xeroxed page
from "The Laboratory <unreadable>", U.S. Naval Weapons Lab, Dahlgren VA.
Vol 45 no 36, but date unreadable. Given the 1947 date and the 26 years
quoted in the caption this must have been published circa 1973 or so.
Those who don't want to see this, please skip this posting...
DO YOU KNOW THE ORIGIN OF THE WORD "DE-BUG"?
BILL BURKE IS THE OWNER OF THE ORIGINAL COMPUTER BUG.
In 1946 and 1947, Bill Burke, Head of the Computer Operations Branch (KOO)
and Ed Culhan, KEE, were at Harvard constructing the Aiken Relay Calculator,
more commonly refered to as MARK II. Named after Professor Howard Aiken,
Head of Harvard's Computation Laboratory, the system operated with several
thousand electrical [sic] mechanical relays. (Ralph, A. Niemann, Head of
the Warfare Analysis Department, was one of the first civilian programmers
hired at the University to work on MARK II.)
In September 1947, the programmer and the engineers were having difficulty
getting a program to run. After much exploration and much head scratching,
a moth was found trapped inside one of the relay cases of the calculator.
It had been beaten to death by the triggering of the relay. The bug was
enshrined in the machine's log with Scotch tape and now resides in Bill
Burke's desk drawer in C-107, K Department.
For the record -- the moth removed from MARK II is the origin of the word
"debugging" and it is owned by NWL, and not displayed in the Smithsonian,
as has been reported, and it was removed from the Aiken Relay Calculator.
[Caption of picture 1:] "TWENTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD-MEMORIES. Going clockwise:
Bill Burke, Ed Culhan, and Ralph Niemann consider the well-preserved insect
secured in the MARK II log which gave a new word to the English language.
[Caption of picture 2:] "The first computer "bug" really was this moth,
much smaller of course." [the picture makes it about 3" long! -zben]
--
Sig DS.L ('ZBen') ; Ben Cranston <zb...@Trantor.UMD.EDU>
* Network Infrastructures Group, Computer Science Center
* University of Maryland at College Park
* of Ulm
Thomas Lapp
And then the smallish pointing devices might even be called "bugs".
"You just move the bug to the menu item you want and press the bug button".
Hmmm.
- tom
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Thomas Lapp
> Mass. was brought down (yes, the entire facility) by a stray cat which
> managed to touch both terminals on the 10 MW (that's MEGAwatts folks)
> primary transformer. Supposedly it was quite a mess and took several
> days to get everything back up again.
This is a bit off track of computers (except that the substation fed
a computer center), but a fellow at work told the story of a snake
which crawled up the side of a transformer then continued up the
primary (32Kvolt) side terminal via the insulator. At one
point the snake was close enough to the terminal, and the
transformer case (gnd potential) that an arc jumped from the
terminal, to the snake, through the snake, and out the other end
to the transformer base. Cooked the snake enough to make it stick
to the insulator.
After the breaker blew, an electrician (who was afraid of snakes, by the
way) went out into the yard (at night) to find out why the breaker blew.
According to the second-hand report, the fellow almost had an accident
when his flashlight (torch) illuminated the snake on the insulator!
Christopher A. Kent
raccoon shorted a substation transformer, plunging the campus into
darkness. The only detail I remember is that the head campus electrician
was quoted as saying 'With electricity, you never quite know what is
going to happen.'
Chris Kent Western Software Laboratory Digital Equipment Corporation
ke...@decwrl.dec.com decwrl!kent (415) 853-6639
JKMJJ@cunyvm
given six shark teeth by AT&T and asked to fabricate a few dozen
teeth with characteristics similar to the shark teeth.
It seems that sharks were attaching the undersea phone and data (see
some computer stuff) links. The phone company was devising new
shielding for the cable and wanted to test it out. They gave the
jaws grant to a different institution.
-------
Jack Meth
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
New York, NY 10019
BITNET JKMJJ@CUNYVM
"When all is said and done, more is said than done." A.E.N.
Neil Cherry
bug is that it was used in the early 1800 during the first analytical engines.
Probably even before that, think about wooden ships and bugs (insects) in the
wood during building. This last part is not fact, just a thought.
NJC
*=- Phydeaux -=*
>flying into a relay of an early electro-mechanical computer.
>The moth gets taped into the system log book.
>The use of "bug" meaning computer problem is born.
>
>Two questions:
> Can someone attest to moth in the logbook story?
> (First- or second- hand sources preferred.)
I heard Grace Hopper give a talk a few years ago at a Heath Users' Group
convention. She told this story.
> I find it hard to believe that this was the first time
> that an insect jammed a relay. Is this really the origin
> of this meaning of bug?
It was a long time ago... there's a first time for anything... but remember,
it wasn't just *any* relay, it was one in a computer...
reb
*=- Phydeaux -=*
>It seems that sharks were attaching the undersea phone and data (see
>some computer stuff) links. The phone company was devising new
>shielding for the cable and wanted to test it out. They gave the
>jaws grant to a different institution.
I saw an article about the shark-bites-cable problem in the Wall Street
Journal a couple of years ago. The headline was: "Sharks prefer AT&T over MCI"
reb
Steve Golson
The First Bug
Grace Murray Hopper, Captain, USNR
NAVDAC
Washington DC 20374
In the summer of 1945 we were building Mark II; we had to build it in an awful
rush -- it was wartime -- out of components we could get our hands on. We were
working in a World War I temporary building. It was a hot summer and there was
no air conditioning, so all the windows were open. Mark II stopped, and we
were trying to get her going. We finally found the relay that had failed.
Inside the relay -- and these were large relays -- was a moth that had been
beaten to death by the relay. We got a pair of tweezers. Very carefully we
took the moth out of the relay, put it in the logbook, and put scotch tape
over it (Figure 2).
Now, Commander Howard Aiken had a habit of coming into the room and
saying, "Are you making any numbers?" We had to have an excuse when we weren't
making any numbers. From then on if we weren't making any numbers, we told him
that we were debugging the computer. To the best of my knowledge that's where
it started. I'm delighted to report that the first bug still exists; it is in
the Naval Museum at the Naval Surface Weapons Center in Dahlgren, Virginia.
Figure 2 shows a page of the Mark II log from September 9, 1945, including the
following entries:
1100 Started Cosine Tape (Sine check)
1525 Started Mult + Adder Test.
1545 |moth| Relay #70 Panel F
|here| (moth) in relay.
First actual case of bug being found.
1630 Arctangent started.
1700 Closed down.
As pointed out in the v10n4 _Annals_, this should more correctly be called
"The First Computer Bug," since the meaning of the word "bug" is at least a
hundred years older. An 1878 letter from Thomas Alva Edison to Theodore Puskas
includes the passage "...then difficulties arise -- this thing gives out and
then that -- 'Bugs' -- as such little faults and difficulties are called..."
To anyone interested in computing folklore and history I most strongly
reccommend you subscribe to the _Annals of the History of Computing_. It is
published quarterly for the American Federation of Information Processing
Societies (AFIPS) and can be ordered from
Springer-Verlag New York
Journal Fulfillment Services
44 Harz Way
Secaucus NJ 07094
Subscription is $38 per year for individuals in North America.
Steve Golson sgo...@East.sun.com gol...@cup.portal.com
Trilobyte Systems -- 33 Sunset Road -- Carlisle MA 01741 -- 508/369-9669
(consultant for, but not employed by, Sun Microsystems)
"As the people here grow colder, I turn to my computer..." -- Kate Bush
John Woods
> I have heard a number of versions of a story about a moth
> flying into a relay of an early electro-mechanical computer.
> The moth gets taped into the system log book.
> The use of "bug" meaning computer problem is born.
Grace Murray Hopper (Madame COBOL) is the source of that story. Somewhere
around here, there used to be photocopy of a photo of the actual log page,
with moth, but it has disappeared. Adm. Hopper believe that was the source
of the term "bug", but others have noted that "bug" was used to describe
problems in transatlantic phone cables sometime before that.
--
John Woods, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, (508) 626-1101
...!decvax!frog!john, jo...@frog.UUCP, ...!mit-eddie!jfw, j...@eddie.mit.edu
James R. B. Davies
is from the online Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.) as one
of the definitions of "bug":
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. Aeronaut. 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'. 1956 N. SHUTE Beyond Black Stump v. 138 They
worked..until the rig had settled down and all the bugs had been ironed
out. 1958 Engineering 14 Mar. 336/2 The seven-and-a-half years..was not
an excessive time to..get the `bugs' out of a new system of that kind.
Peter da Silva
I've seen the moth. It's in the Smithsonian.
I doubt if it was the first use of the word "bug" in this context.
--
_--_|\ Peter da Silva <pe...@sugar.hackercorp.com>.
/ \
\_.--._/ I haven't lost my mind, it's backed up on tape somewhere!
v "Have you hugged your wolf today?" `-_-'
Paul D. Crowley
>I'm told (I wasn't there) that the Bates Linear Accelerator in Middleton
>Mass. was brought down (yes, the entire facility) by a stray cat which
>managed to touch both terminals on the 10 MW (that's MEGAwatts folks)
>primary transformer. Supposedly it was quite a mess and took several
>days to get everything back up again.
Anyone know anything about the story about the vast capacitors used
for the Russian fusion torus project? Seems they had to carry such huge
voltages that the plates were a metre apart. Some guy walked between
them and...it took them a while to work out where this huge pile of dust
came from.
Saved on cremation.
--
This posting contains logical punctuation, for which I make no apology.
It may be reproduced freely in part or whole correctly accredited.
Paul D Crowley ai...@uk.ac.ed.castle --- It wasn't me, it was my aardvark.
Mike McManus
In article <15...@east.East.Sun.COM> sgo...@pyrite.East.Sun.COM (Steve Golson) writes:
>
> From _Annals of the History of Computing_ v10n4 1989 p. 340:
>
> The First Bug
>
> Grace Murray Hopper, Captain, USNR
> NAVDAC
> Washington DC 20374
>
>
> I'm delighted to report that the first bug still exists; it is in
> the Naval Museum at the Naval Surface Weapons Center in Dahlgren, Virginia.
I have a 1-page summary of what is described in Steve'e posting, along with a
picture of the logbook page, that I evidently tore out of a _Reader's Digest_
many years back. I have it pinned above my terminal. At least it makes me
*LOOK* like a Real Hacker[tm] when people walk into my cube. :-)
--
Disclaimer: All spelling and/or grammer in this document are guaranteed to be
correct; any exseptions is the is wurk uv intter-net deemuns.
Mike McManus (mik...@ncr-fc.FtCollins.ncr.com)
NCR Microelectronics
2001 Danfield Ct. ncr-fc!mik...@ncr-sd.sandiego.ncr.com, or
Ft. Collins, Colorado ncr-fc!mik...@ccncsu.colostate.edu, or
(303) 223-5100 Ext. 360 uunet!ncrlnk!ncr-sd!ncr-fc!garage!mikemc
Stephen Jacobs
have seen a photo of the notebook entry, complete with dead moth) that the
tone in which the story is told STRONGLY suggests that the term 'bug' was
already being used at the time the bug actually got caught in the relay. That's
why people were so amused.
Steve J.