Smithsonian Institution
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Asset Name:
damsmdm:NMAH-NMAH2000-03035

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Object details:

Title: Log Book With Computer Bug
Smithsonian Record ID: edanmdm:nmah_334663

	Title
	Log Book With Computer Bug

	Metadata Usage
	CC0

	Guid
	http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746a3-b8b7-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa

	Data Source
	National Museum of American History

	Director
	Aiken, Howard Hathaway

	Maker
	Harvard University

	Maker
	IBM

	Maker
	Harvard University

	Maker
	Aiken, Howard

	Physical Description
	tape (overall material)

	Physical Description
	paper (overall material)

	Physical Description
	cloth (overall material)

	Physical Description
	ink (overall material)

	Physical Description
	biologicals (overall material)

	Measurements
	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

	Description
	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. 

	Description
	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.

	Description
	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."

	Description
	References:

	Description
	Grace Murray Hopper,"The First Bug," Annals of the History of Computing,vol. 3 #3, 1981, pp. 285-286.

	Description
	P. A. Kidwell, "Stalking the ElusiveComputer Bug," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vo.20, #4, 1998, pp.5-9.

	Location
	Currently not on view

	Place Made
	United States: Massachusetts, Cambridge

	Credit Line
	Transfer from United States Department of Defense, Naval Surface Warfare Center

	ID Number
	1994.0191.01

	Catalog number
	1994.0191.1

	Accession number
	1994.0191

	Date made
	1947

	Object Name
	log book

	Subject
	Computer Bug

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