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Log Book With Computer Bug

National Museum of American History
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Object Details

director
Aiken, Howard Hathaway
Harvard University
IBM
Harvard University
Aiken, Howard
Description
American engineers have been calling small flaws in machines "bugs" for over a century. Thomas Edison talked about bugs in electrical circuits in the 1870s. When the first computers were built during the early 1940s, people working on them found bugs in both the hardware of the machines and in the programs that ran them. 
In 1947, engineers working on the Mark II computer at Harvard University found a moth stuck in one of the components. They taped the insect in their logbook and labeled it "first actual case of bug being found." The words "bug" and "debug" soon became a standard part of the language of computer programmers.
Among those working on the Mark II in 1947 was mathematician and computer programmer Grace Hopper, who later became a Navy rear admiral. This log book was probably not Hopper's, but she and the rest of the Mark II team helped popularize the use of the term computer bug and the related phrase "debug."
References:
Grace Murray Hopper,"The First Bug," Annals of the History of Computing,vol. 3 #3, 1981, pp. 285-286.
P. A. Kidwell, "Stalking the ElusiveComputer Bug," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vo.20, #4, 1998, pp.5-9.
Location
Currently not on view
Credit Line
Transfer from United States Department of Defense, Naval Surface Warfare Center
1947
ID Number
1994.0191.01
catalog number
1994.0191.1
accession number
1994.0191
Object Name
log book
Physical Description
tape (overall material)
paper (overall material)
cloth (overall material)
ink (overall material)
biologicals (overall material)
Measurements
overall: 1.5 cm x 48.4 cm x 29.5 cm; 9/16 in x 19 1/16 in x 11 5/8 in
Place Made
United States: Massachusetts, Cambridge
See more items in
Medicine and Science: Computers
Military
Computers & Business Machines
National Museum of American History
subject
Computer Bug
Record ID
nmah_334663
Metadata Usage (text)
CC0
GUID (Link to Original Record)
http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746a3-b8b7-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa
There are restrictions for re-using this image. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page .
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IIIF provides researchers rich metadata and media viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections. Visit the IIIF page to learn more.
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