myCobol.net

It's a hot room where we work on one of the first computing devices ever. The windows are left open to get some fresh air.
Than a moth flies by and flutters into the hardware relays, which are exposed in the open. The machine shuts down on that very occasion.
Well, removing that bug was not so difficult and the work went on.

The story is a bit of computer folklore, and it is the case that Mrs. Hopper, during her work with Mark II, was at the center of the anecdote. The very moth became logged into a logbook.

At that time the use of the word "bug" referred to problems with the hardware. In the mid 1950's, Mrs. Hopper extended the meaning of the term "debug" to include removing programming errors.