Log Book With Computer Bug
date: label: Date made
content: 1947
name: label: director
content: Aiken, Howard Hathaway
label: maker
content: Harvard University
label: maker
content: IBM
label: maker
content: Harvard University
label: maker
content: Aiken, Howard
notes: label: Description
content: 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. 
label: Description
content: 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.
label: Description
content: 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."
label: Description
content: References:
label: Description
content: Grace Murray Hopper,"The First Bug," Annals of the History of Computing,vol. 3 #3, 1981, pp. 285-286.
label: Description
content: P. A. Kidwell, "Stalking the ElusiveComputer Bug," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vo.20, #4, 1998, pp.5-9.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: Place Made
content: United States: Massachusetts, Cambridge
topic: label: Subject
content: Computer Bug
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Computers
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content: Military
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content: Computers & Business Machines
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Transfer from United States Department of Defense, Naval Surface Warfare Center
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1994.0191.01
label: catalog number
content: 1994.0191.1
label: accession number
content: 1994.0191
objectType: label: Object Name
content: log book
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: tape (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: cloth (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: ink (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: biologicals (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: 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