Re: [TUHS] 70th anniversary of (official) programming errors

[Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com>]

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There are citations from Edison in the 19th century using the word, and a
quote somewhere by Maurice Wilkes about the stairwell moment when he
realized much of the rest of his life would be spent finding programming
errors.

That moth was not the first bug, nor the first "bug", it was the first
recorded "actual bug".

-rob


On Wed, Jun 16, 2021 at 9:46 AM Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Jun 15, 2021 at 6:55 PM John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Jun 15, 2021 at 6:25 PM Steffen Nurpmeso <steffen@sdaoden.eu>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> As not being hard-to-the-core i may have missed it, but also in
>>> 1951, in March, the wonderful Grace Hopper "conceives the first
>>> compiler, called A-O and later released as Math-Matic.  Hopper is
>>> also credited with coining the term 'bug' following an incident
>>> involving a moth and a Mark II.
>>>
>>
>> Yes, but wrongly.  The label next to the moth is "First actual case of
>> bug being found", and the word "actual" shows that the slang term already
>> existed then.  Brief unexplained faults on telephony (and before that
>> telegraphy) lines were "bugs on the line" back in the 19C.  Vibroplex
>> telegraph keys, first sold in 1905, had a picture of a beetle on the top of
>> the key, and were notorious for creating bugs when inexperienced operators
>> used them.  (Vibroplex is still in business, still selling its
>> continuous-operation telegraph keys, which ditt as long as you hold the
>> paddle to the right.)
>>
>
> Indeed, the Vibroplex key is called a "bug". I suspect this has something
> to do with its appearance more than anything else, though (it kinda sorta
> looks like, er, a bug).
>
>         - Dan C.
>
>

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