Was the first computer bug a real insect? Detailed answer

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Was the first computer bug a real insect? Detailed answer

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Did you know?

Was the first computer bug a real insect?

(English "bug" has several meanings: "bug" (in different senses) and "bug in the program" (computer slang).)

Yes and no.

Let's start with yes. In 1947, a US Navy Mark II computer in a large auditorium (without air conditioning) at Harvard University was disabled by an ordinary moth stuck between the contacts of an electromechanical relay. The operators removed the flattened insect, stuck it with adhesive tape in a technical journal with an accompanying entry, and only after that restarted the computer.

The mechanical nature of this machine made it particularly vulnerable to insect interference. Most of the early computers, such as the ENIAC ("Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer") at the University of Pennsylvania, were already electronic and used special vacuum tubes to protect against moths.

But did the term "bug" really come from the Harvard incident? Answer: no. In the meaning of "error" or "failure" in a particular mechanism, the word was used back in the 1889th century. The Oxford English Dictionary quotes an 1943 newspaper report about how Thomas Edison "was up for the last two nights trying to find a 'bug' in his phonograph." The XNUMX edition of Webster's Dictionary also gives the word "bug" in its modern sense.

Despite what numerous websites and books tell us, the term "debugging" was used long before the Harvard moth stalled the move of things.

Quite a telling example: life imitates language - a revived metaphor, literally.

Author: John Lloyd, John Mitchinson

Random interesting fact from the Great Encyclopedia:

What bird managed to live a year and a half without a head?

Rooster Mike lived for a year and a half after an American farmer cut off his head in 1945. The rooster has the base of the brain and one ear. When the farmer noticed that the rooster had not yet died, he decided to take care of him by injecting milk and grain directly through a pipette. Mike rose to fame after starting his demonstrations across the country, his authenticity is documented, and the rooster died only because the owner forgot food and a syringe for cleaning the esophagus at the site of the next show. Many have tried to repeat this experience, but no other chicken has lived more than two days without a head.

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