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When is a bug a bug


Lking

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Posted
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Me personally, hoping a bug (unfortunate name ...

Fun fact: "The first computer bug was a moth"

In 1980 when I met Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, then 74, one of the stories she told was about the "First computer bug."

During WW II the (US) Navy assigned her to work on/program the Harvard Mark 1 computer. She said one of her jobs was to maintain the maintenance log.  (I guess in 1940s that wasn't a sexist blunder). She reported that one morning while fixing one of the frequent failures, a moth was found in one of the may (mechanical) relays. She documented the failure and the fix "taping the bug in the log."

Posted
4 hours ago, Lking said:

"taping the bug in the log."

Excellent story Master, 'cept for the deader bug 😭.

Posted

Ah, yes, Grace Hopper. I once saw a photo of said moth. Didn't she (Ms. Hopper) have some connection with the initial development of COBOL?

Posted

Yes she did.  Coming from assembly language & FORTRAN I always thought COBOL was verbose "(self documenting" aside).

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