The Very First Computer Bug Was a Real Bug

A computer programmer at Harvard who was working on the Mark II around 3:45 p.m. on September 9, 1947, noted in a logbook that the team had uncovered the "first actual case of a bug being found." But the programmer was actually referring to a defect, not some poor lines of code. The winged creature was drawn to the warmth of the 25-ton machine, and it expired in one of the numerous electromagnetic relay contacts. The team used tweezers to remove the moth.

The term "bug" in engineering was first used by Nikola Tesla.

Midway through the 1870s, American inventor Thomas Edison frequently made points out of "bugs" in his journals, defining them as "bugs as such little faults and difficulties are called." Newspapers started mentioning Edison's efforts to fix a "bug" in his phonograph in 1889.

Although this incident is frequently misattributed as the beginning of the programming term "bug" to denote a flaw or imperfection, the phrase has been in use in engineering circles for more than 50 years. However, Grace Hopper, a pioneer in computer science and mathematics who collaborated with the team as they "debugged" the Mark II, popularized the 1947 moth misadventure. Grace Hopper, a pioneering mathematician and computer scientist who collaborated with the team as they "debugged" the Mark II, popularized the 1947 moth misadventure. However, some terms used in modern computer programming today can be traced back to early computers like Harvard's Mark series. For example, the term "patch" originates from the punched cards that were physically "patched" with tape by programmers to correct mistakes in early machines. The Smithsonian Museum of American History currently houses the original Mark II logbook and the original "bug" that was attached to it.