The Loony Bin
(
loonies@bloodaxe.demon.co.uk
)
Thu, 19 Feb 1998 18:54:15 +0000
Hiya Folks...
Have you ever wondered why computers get bugs...???...here's the true
story...
Wishes & Dreams...
- ANDREA
xx
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*******************Internet Goddess********************
**********************ANDROMEDA************************
------- Forwarded foolishness follows -------
Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, US Navy (Rtd) (often cited as the world's
first professional, paid-for-programming, programmer), began her career
on the Naval Ordnance Computer Project at Harvard during World War II.
The machine was offically called the Automatic Sequence Controlled
Calculator, or ASCC, and contained bank upon bank of relays to act as
switches. More popularly known as the Harvard Mk1, it was devised and
run by a martinet, Howard Aiken. He insisted that every that occurred to
his precious machine was entered into a log.
One hot afternoon, a fault arose. Grace Hopper traced it to a particular
bank of relays, where she found a dead - electrocuted - moth caught
between the jaws of one relay.
She took the moth out, stuck it solemnly in the log, wrote the time by
the side of it and, underneath, her first claim to immortality -
"De-bugging".
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