Re: "Bugs" (Was: Anyone could give a complete and yet small program on the use for the generic

[dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

Richard Riehle says

"  The original "bug" was an actual insect that orginated outside the
  computer in which it appeared.  If an error in one program originates
  in some other program, it might be a "bug" in that receiving program,but
  it is probably someone else's mistake."


This is an old bit of urban legend, but is wrong, the term bug is very
old. We are talking about meaning 3b in OED II:

"A defect or fault in a machine, plan, or the like, orig U.S."

The first quotation given is 1889: "Pall Mall Gaz 11 Mar. 1/1
"Mr Edison, I was informed, had been up the two previous nights
discovering 'a bug' in his phonograph -- an expression for solving a
difficulty, and implying that some imaginary insect has secreted itself
inside and is causing all the trouble."

There are additional quotes that precede the computer age.

(well I guess over a hundred years is not really 'very old', but certainly
this term is not a phenomenon of the computer age, unless you date
computers back to Babbage, which come to think of it on this newsgroup
is reasonable enough :-)