28/03/2025
🪲🪳🐞
The phrase “computer bug” traces back to a literal insect found in an early computing machine.
In 1947, while working on the Harvard Mark II at IBM, engineers discovered that a moth had gotten trapped in one of the computer’s relays, leading to a malfunction.
Grace Hopper, a pioneering figure in computer science, recorded the event by taping the moth into the project log and noting it as the “first actual case of a bug being found.” Although the word “bug” had been used in engineering contexts prior to this, this marked the first time it was associated with computer issues.