Friday, September 9 — The first instance of debugging a computer was recorded on this date in 1947. The early Mark II computer being developed at Harvard University was balky, and a programming team — which included Navy Lieutenant Grace Hopper, a pioneer in computer history — found and fixed the problem. A moth had wedged into a relay board, causing a short circuit. The deceased moth was extracted and preserved. The log card containing notes on the de-bugging, and the appended remains of the moth, was preserved for a time by a Navy museum in Virginia, and more recently, by the Smithsonian Institution. With moths and other bugs banished from circuits and chips, nearly 84 percent of U.S. households have computers, and almost 75 percent of households access the internet.
SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau
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