http://www.uq.edu.au/education/extra/all.html

Man, that's messed up! I know it's Australia, but did that person have their computer set up outside or something?

I hope that was an uninivted snake and not a pet snake. If it were me, I'd be getting a bad nights sleep either way, I suppose.

Matthew

Reminds me of how the word 'bug' was introduced to the computer world.

Reminds me of how the word 'bug' was introduced to the computer world.

Which is reportedly an urban myth. There are lots of people propogating the Grace Hopper "Moth" story, but I think it's been shown that the term Bug was in use prior to that incident.

If I recall correctly, that is. I could be wrong.

Ah, yep. Gotta love google.

Uh, but that was either the $500,000 or $1,000,000 question on Who Wants to be a Millionaire... and the guy won! He should be ordered to give back the money.

Jargon File ``bug'' entry:

Grace Hopper ... liked to tell a story in which a technician solved a glitch in the Harvard Mark II machine by pulling an actual insect out from between the contacts of one of its relays, and she subsequently promulgated bug in its hackish sense as a joke about the incident. For many years the logbook associated with the incident and the actual bug in question (a moth) sat in a display case at the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC).

The text of the log entry reads "1545 Relay #70 Panel F (moth) in relay. First actual case of bug being found". This wording establishes that the term was already in use at the time in its current specific sense -- and Hopper herself reports that the term `bug' was regularly applied to problems in radar electronics during WWII.

It goes on after that to examine it's potential etymology (but not entomology).

Wow, didn't know that. Actually a couple weeks ago, a lecturer at my university told this very myth in one of his .. well... lectures. I heard it countless times before though. The same guy claimed during another lecture that the origin of the term 'bit' is unknown, while I knew that it's a shortcut for BInary digiT. So, I guess I should have known better ...

So what would be an abbeviation for a Ternary digIT.

So what would be an abbeviation for a Ternary digIT.

Let's see if I can remember the limerick right...

If binary digits are bits,
Then decimal ones could be dits.
And while we're exploring,
try something less boring,
like playing with trinary tits.

the first "bug report?



(That's a picture of Dr. Hopper's log entry that the jagon file refers to.)