bug

In computer science, a bug is an error or flaw sometimes within a hardware component, or more commonly an error in the writing of the coding of a software program. This causes the program to freeze, or crash, or a major error can cause the entire computer to crash and totally stop functioning.

Some say the term "bug" originated from the early days of computers, at a lab at Harvard University. On the 9th September 1945, a staff member discovered a moth had flown between some relay contacts in the Mark II computer and jammed it. The laboratory log shows the computer was "debugged," and this term is also now in common use.

That may well be the first time the term "bug" was used in reference to computers. But the use the term in reference to an error or problem in the electrical or mechanical fields had been coined by the American inventor, Thomas Edison, in the mid to late 1800's.

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