Colin, Jerry, On Sunday 17 April 2005 07:41, Colin Carter wrote:
On Sunday 17 April 2005 23:41, Jerry Feldman wrote:
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What you are talking about is Alan Turing's Enigma machine. But, what I was referring to is the coining of the word, "bug". I was fortunate to have had lunch with Grace Hopper once back around 1980.
I agree that that would have been a great honour. I envy you.
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/pers-us/uspers-h/g-hoppr.htm
Interesting site. But I don't believe what I read, especially when it comes to computer stuff ;-)
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I don't mean to be offensive Jerry, but It is interesting that Americans discovered the first bug after the English had destroyed their programmable computer.
I think this passage in Captain Hopper's log is widely misinterpreted. The use of "bug" as a technological failure of some sort predates this event by a good long time. Furthermre, it seems pretty clear (or at least plausible) to me that by "first actual bug" the meaning was meant to be somewhat humorous: For the first time, the bug was an "actual [...] bug". It was probably also not meant as a historically authoritative comment, but rather something contextual only to her personal knowledge of the history of technology. I thought Captain Hopper herself once disavowed the assertion made by some that she coined the term "bug" when used in this sense. There's abundant etymological evidence that this sense of "bug" long predates the advent of the electronic digital computer. For example, Thomas A. Edison used it in 1889 to describe a problem he had during the development of the phonograph. Here's a good article from a reputable source (Random House): http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=20010525.
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Regards, Colin
Randall Schulz