TAPED A MOTH?! The First Ever Computer Bug
Animated Short, 0:27. Published 2026-11-11.
First ever computer bug? A real moth, found stuck in a Harvard computer on Sept 9, 1947, and taped into the logbook. 🐛
But the moth didn't create the word. Engineers already called machine faults "bugs", and Thomas Edison wrote about them in the 1870s. That's the joke in the note. The logbook is now at the Smithsonian.
Source: Smithsonian National Museum of American History, "Log Book With Computer Bug".
Who named the bug: EDISON or the MOTH? 👇
Transcript
A Harvard engineer taped a dead moth into a computer's logbook. In nineteen forty-seven. So that's why it's called a computer bug! Nope. Everybody thinks that. Then why? Bug already meant a glitch. Even Edison said it. But then a real moth jammed one of its switches. So they taped it in. The first actual bug.
My game froze! Check it for moths. Wait. So who named it? Edison, or the moth?
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