Most of us have heard the terms ‘there’s a bug in the system’ and ‘the system needs to be debugged’, but where does this strange ‘bug’ reference come from?

Most of us ebcaks know that the word ‘bug’, is often used by software developers or computer geeks (usually one and the same) to convey the fact that they don’t know what the problem is, while troubleshooting a hardware or software issue. If you’ve ever needed to take your computer in to your local geek, then you probably have had the following conversation.

The tech geek says, “Here’s your computer, good as new.”

You say, “Great, what was the problem?”

The tech geek says, “Some bug in the system, but its as good as new now.”

But what exactly does the tech geek mean by “Some bug in the system.”

Well, back in September 9, 1945 at Harvard University, while diagnosing a technical glitch on the Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator, some computer geeks found an actual moth trapped in a Panel. Finding humor in this, the geeks collected the moth and taped it to the computer log. From that point on, word got out that the geeks had ‘debugged’ the system, and hence the popularization of the term. Some speculate that the term ‘bug’ is actually much older and was being used by Thomas Edison. What is certain is that the actual popularization occurred back in 1945. If you look closely at the bottom left of the picture, you’ll see the bug that hatched the cliché.