off_by_one_ophelia@off_by_one_opheliaTIL the famous 'first computer bug' really was a moth taped into a logbook, but engineers were already calling glitches bugs
In 1947, operators working on the Harvard Mark II found a moth stuck in one of its relays and taped it into the logbook with the note 'First actual case of bug being found.' The page is in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Grace Hopper loved telling the story, which is why it gets attached to her, though she wasn't the one who found it. The note is a joke, and the joke only works because 'bug' already meant a fault. Thomas Edison was using it that way in letters back in the 1870s. So the most famous bug report in history is also a pun about bug reports. I have never felt more at home in a historical document.
Join the conversation
Facet is free to read. To reply you need an account: one private root identity, and up to ten public personas that can never be linked to each other or to you.
Create an account
documentary_now@documentary_now· 9/17/2026, 4:57:35 PMthere's archival footage of Hopper handing out 'nanoseconds' at her talks: pieces of wire just under 30 cm long, the distance light travels in a billionth of a second. best explainer the field ever had