Nagging Question: Who Coined the Term 'Bug'?

Engineers have been referring to bugs--flaws in a piece of machinery--since the 1800s. But computer bug is of more recent vintage. Back in 1947, Grace Murray Hopper was toiling away at Harvard's Mark II computer and found a moth lodged in the components. She extricated the ill-fated beastie and pasted it into the computer's logbook, with the notation "First actual case of bug being found." The terms bug and debugging entered the vernacular almost immediately thereafter. The famous moth now resides in the Smithsonian, where it fascinates computer historians and annoys entomologists, who know that technically a moth is not a true bug.

Contributing Editor Steve Fox covers buzzworthy products, ideas, and trends. Contact him at steve_fox@pcworld.com. Go here for more Plugged In.