[Ads-l] Question About Grace Murray Hopper As Word-Coiner

[Shapiro, Fred]

Do we know whether Hopper was already at Harvard in April 1944?


Fred Shapiro



________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Hugo <hugovk at GMAIL.COM>
Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2017 3:29 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Question About Grace Murray Hopper As Word-Coiner

Yep, the 1944 computer "bug" predates Hopper's 1947 computer "bug".
Here's what Kidwell wrote:

---
The ASCC Mark I arrived at Harvard in February of 1944 and was
installed with the assistance of IBM engineers (see Fig. 2 ). I.B.
Cohen has examined a photocopy of the logbook kept by Robert Campbell,
a young physicist at the Computation Laboratory. It tersely summarizes
hours spent finding and correcting errors. On 17 April 1944, Campbell
wrote, "Ran test problem. Mr. Durfee from I.B.M. was here to help us
find 'bugs.'"
---

Peggy Aldrich Kidwell, "Stalking the Elusive Computer Bug," IEEE
Annals of the History of Computing, pp. 5-9, October-December, 1998
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__dl.acm.org_citation.cfm-3Fid-3D612741&d=CwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=NvsW-OhBbzxE92nK31T2wnmV21_Bx7bPCKzIsk5T4FQ&m=8FHoIjM9oF1lzhbOmzsp7_OxU-KMB2-ice40ikSPCOQ&s=Tx-M6BmDirVxddR9wlvqKoKvVEN9r0ozY-oMocGONY0&e=

Also reported by I. Bernard Cohen, professor of the history of science
at Harvard:

* Cohen, I.B.; , "The use of “bug” in computing," IEEE Annals of the
History of Computing, vol.16, no.2, pp.54-55, Summer 1994
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__ieeexplore.ieee.org_xpls_abs-5Fall.jsp-3FisNumber-3D6924-26arNumber-3D279235-26isnumber-3D6924-26arnumber-3D279235-26tag-3D1&d=CwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=NvsW-OhBbzxE92nK31T2wnmV21_Bx7bPCKzIsk5T4FQ&m=8FHoIjM9oF1lzhbOmzsp7_OxU-KMB2-ice40ikSPCOQ&s=0ouLoCgiqmfCPMvkddCRAs0ZWOASkFJptf_lxsTlq2s&e=

* And in his book Howard Aiken: Portrait of a Computer Pioneer.
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__goo.gl_a0KlS5&d=CwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=NvsW-OhBbzxE92nK31T2wnmV21_Bx7bPCKzIsk5T4FQ&m=8FHoIjM9oF1lzhbOmzsp7_OxU-KMB2-ice40ikSPCOQ&s=3L8EkW6I6H0ZYewCyFtgUTEkQQyqBWJVRHI9VZ08LSE&e=

Hugo

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