From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,21b3f6811a7b30be X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) Subject: Re: "Bugs" (Was: Anyone could give a complete and yet small program on the use for the generic Date: 1997/01/08 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 208592669 references: <5ahf34$snd$1@news.nyu.edu> <5aitud$hjr@top.mitre.org> organization: New York University newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1997-01-08T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: 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 :-)