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| _________________________________________
/ Ever wondered about the origins of the \
| term "bugs" as applied to computer |
| technology? U.S. Navy Capt. Grace |
| Murray Hopper has firsthand |
| explanation. The 74-year-old captain, |
| who is still on active duty, was a |
| pioneer in computer technology during |
| World War II. At the C.W. Post Center |
| of Long Island University, Hopper told |
| a group of Long Island public school |
| adminis- trators that the first |
| computer "bug" was a real bug--a moth. |
| At Harvard one August night in 1945, |
| Hopper and her associates were working |
| on the "granddaddy" of modern |
| computers, the Mark I. "Things were |
| going badly; there was something wrong |
| in one of the circuits of the long |
| glass-enclosed computer," she said. |
| "Finally, someone located the trouble |
| spot and, using ordinary tweezers, |
| removed the problem, a two-inch moth. |
| From then on, when anything went wrong |
| with a computer, we said it had bugs in |
| it." Hopper said that when the veracity |
| of her story was questioned recently, |
| "I referred them to my 1945 log book, |
| now in the collection of the Naval |
| Surface Weapons Center, and they found |
| the remains of that moth taped to the |
| page in question." |
| |
| [actually, the term "bug" had even |
| earlier usage in |
| |
| regard to problems with radio hardware. |
\ Ed.] /
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\
\
/\_)o<
| \
| O . O|
\_____/
|