Greetings everyone,

Just would like to know, is there such thing as a computer or IT related urban legend and has there been any truth about it. Do mind, it up to you if you believe in such things...As for me, I'm still wandering. ;P

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How about where did the phrase computer bug come from?

How about where did the phrase computer bug come from?

True story -- September 1947, Grace Hooper at Harvard University.

get a newsreader and checkout alt.folklore.computer over on the UseNet; this can be found in the primeval miasma of the early internet back while it was still all text.

True story -- September 1947, Grace Hooper at Harvard University.

Actually, the truth is fuzzier than that. While the bug shorting out some circuitry in the computer is true. It seems Grace Hooper got that term because people had already been calling electrical circuitry problems bugs. Thus, maybe she was the first to tie it into a computer, but she did not coin the term when it comes to electric equipment.

Interesting fact, I did hear about it but through information digging, here is what I had gathered....

Note this is taken from this url:
http://www.jamesshuggins.com/h/tek1/first_computer_bug.htm

In 1947, Grace Murray Hopper was working on the Harvard University Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator (a primitive computer).

On the 9th of September, 1947, when the machine was experiencing problems, an investigation showed that there was a moth trapped between the points of Relay #70, in Panel F.

The operators removed the moth and affixed it to the log. (See the picture above.) The entry reads: "First actual case of bug being found."

(See the link at the bottom of this page for a much larger version of this picture.)

The word went out that they had "debugged" the machine and the term "debugging a computer program" was born.

Although Grace Hopper was always careful to admit that she was not there when it actually happened, it was one of her favorite stories.

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In short, it was the guys who removed the moth off, who coined the term debugged don't you guys think?

Thanks for the replies by the way,

So what do you guys think about pirates of the silicon valley, is it true or fiction coz I haven't gotten to the details yet...

Loken

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