Jargon file v2.1.5 28 NOV 1990 -- part 1 of 6

[Jan Mattson]

In <207 at frcs.UUCP> paul at frcs.UUCP (Paul Nash) writes:

>Thus spake eric at snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond):

>> BUG [from telephone terminology, ``bugs in a telephone cable'', blamed
>>    for noisy lines] n. An unwanted and unintended property of a
>>    program, esp. one which causes it to malfunction. See FEATURE.

>I have heard this attributed to Rear Admiral (retd) Grace Hopper, who 
>had a malfunctioning program.  The cause was traced to a fried moth in
>the back of the computer.

The use of the word "bug" to describe "unwanted and unintended" behavior
is much older than computers. Edison used it, and perhaps it's even older
than that.


--
Jan Mattsson					
Computer Science student, Uppsala University, Sweden
Email: D88.Jan-Mattsson at carmen.docs.uu.se   or  janm at zorn.csd.uu.se