Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The story of the first “computer bug” is a pile of lies

lunduke.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 121 posts

Re: The story of the first “computer bug” is a pile of lies

#61

Post by Symbiote »

ogurechny wrote: post #48
mrhektor wrote: post #9

I'd just like to say that Thomas Edison's handwriting in his letter is absolutely beautiful. It almost looks like it's been typed out on a computer using a funky font. It's funny how the handwriting of almost everyone I know is quite bad these days. My own is almost illegible! I wonder what everyone thinks about this general degradation in penmanship? I guess it's not really needed in this day and age, but there's so…

Those who learned to write with dip pens blame the ballpoint pens. However, people who actually use dip pens say that mass-made ones were not that good at helping you write better. There is also another interesting question of how complex writing exercises set the manner to express one's thoughts both orally and on paper.

You have missed fountain pens. I found I wrote better when I used one, but it was compulsory at school until I was about 14. At that point, I immediately switched to a ball point pen, mostly to rebel and feel older.

I switched back once I was more mature.

Dip pens were obsoleted in the late 19th century.

Re: The story of the first “computer bug” is a pile of lies

#62

Post by noindiecred »

Mundane observation, but I love reading stories about this era of computing and seeing the history that’s behind all the conventions we take for granted. The “log” was an actual notebook that was manually updated by a human, taking its name from a nautical logbook. The “console” was called that because it was a piece of furniture (a console table) that happened to contain lights that showed the system status. This stuff is fascinating.

Re: The story of the first “computer bug” is a pile of lies

#63

Post by edanm »

mrhektor wrote: post #9

I'd just like to say that Thomas Edison's handwriting in his letter is absolutely beautiful. It almost looks like it's been typed out on a computer using a funky font. It's funny how the handwriting of almost everyone I know is quite bad these days. My own is almost illegible! I wonder what everyone thinks about this general degradation in penmanship? I guess it's not really needed in this day and age, but there's so…

I remembered someone once posted about Dijkstra's handwriting being incredible, so I tracked down the link for you, see the third image on that page for an example: https://joshldavis.com/2013/05/20/the-path-to-dijkstras-hand...

The whole blog is about trying to write like Dijkstra.

Re: The story of the first “computer bug” is a pile of lies

#64

Post by zoomablemind »

mrhektor wrote: post #16
int_19h wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edison's handwriting is unusually legible even by the standards of that period. You can look at many other historical artefacts to see what the average looked like.

I looked up letters written by other 20th century scientists, the average looks pretty good: Marie Curie: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7722951 Tesla: https://www.benjamindecasseres.com/nikola-teslas-letter-to-b... They all seem to have this really "flowy" style

>...They all seem to have this really "flowy" style.

I guess, the flow was needed to literally maintain the flow of ink off the pen.

Re: The story of the first “computer bug” is a pile of lies

#65

Post by ogurechny »

Symbiote wrote: post #61
ogurechny wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those who learned to write with dip pens blame the ballpoint pens. However, people who actually use dip pens say that mass-made ones were not that good at helping you write better. There is also another interesting question of how complex writing exercises set the manner to express one's thoughts both orally and on paper.

You have missed fountain pens. I found I wrote better when I used one, but it was compulsory at school until I was about 14. At that point, I immediately switched to a ball point pen, mostly to rebel and feel older. I switched back once I was more mature. Dip pens were obsoleted in the late 19th century.

I am a bit skeptical about millions and millions of kids all across the world having fountain pens.

Re: The story of the first “computer bug” is a pile of lies

#66

Post by derekp7 »

ListeningPie wrote: post #59
alibrarydweller wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned handwriting in schools (early 90s) and like many it turned into absolute chicken scratch by high school as with many. Somewhere between high school and college I decided it was worth fixing and after a few years it got much better, continuing to improve for the next ten years or so. I'm really glad I did it - my notes flow more easily, my written correspondence impresses and I have the common sense to simpl…

How did you go about improving it?

There are a number of techniques you can use, but it really boils down to practice repetition. Some exercises that seemed to help me, when done at night before going to bed (about 5 minutes or so) is to take a piece of paper and write a bunch of parallel lines (basically small letter "L") and try to get them to be exactly the same. Then draw a bunch of circles (letter "O") and try to make them the same size and perfectly round. Do it slow enough at first so you don't practice in bad technique, then try to get faster at it.

Also, as part of a woodworking hobby I'm getting back into, I needed to start drawing out sketches of projects. I started with some light graph paper to get proportions right, but now can somewhat easily draw out the board layouts of things like desks or dressers and get fairly straight lines over distance on the paper. I couldn't do this before.

Oh, and getting something like a good fountain pen that flows good, with good paper, will make you "want" to write whenever you get the chance. Get a nice one or two, but also pick up a pack of Pilot Varsity disposable fountain pens -- they actually write fairly decent, and aren't fussy at all.

Re: The story of the first “computer bug” is a pile of lies

#67

Post by jcranmer »

Narretz wrote: post #55
phire wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People did actually start calling WW1 "The first world war" long before WW2 started. There is even few instances of that terminology going back to 1914. They were pessimistic there would be more.

Couldn't it also have been called "First World War" because it was the first war where fighting happened - over multiple continents - with huge number of countries participating - at the same time - as part of the same conflict

Arguably, that honor goes to the Seven Years' War, which saw significant fighting both in Europe and in North America.

The French Revolutionary Wars/Napoleonic Wars were equally grand in scale, and conducted at a time when the "world" for all practical purposes included only European powers--all of the major ones got involved in those conflicts at one point or another; even the newly-independent US got peripherally involved (the War of 1812 is partially started due to the effects the Napoleonic Wars had on US shipping).

Re: The story of the first “computer bug” is a pile of lies

#68

Post by dboreham »

wrp wrote: post #35
kryptiskt wrote: post #23

The logbook entry only makes sense if "bug" is a pre-existing term for a glitch, otherwise the humor with the real bug would fall flat. So I never understood how anybody could claim that it was the origin of the term.

The use of "bug" to refer to an operational problem goes back to at least the mid 19th century. I vaguely remember an article where the author found reference to getting the bugs out of the design of a carriage.

https://www.shakespeareswords.com/Public/Glossary.aspx?id=24...

Re: The story of the first “computer bug” is a pile of lies

#69

Post by [deleted] »

susam wrote: post #31

The log book entry that says, "First actual case of bug being found", indeed always seemed like a piece of humour to me. The presence of the word "actual" in the entry makes sense only if the term "bug" to mean defects is already established in the industry. If this log book entry really were the first time a bug was found in a computer, it would have merely said, "a bug was found", not "first actual case of bug". Im…

[deleted]

Re: The story of the first “computer bug” is a pile of lies

#70

Post by zoomablemind »

I had impression that "bugs" notion migrated to programs from bugs found in books.

In older days, getting a used book from an unknown house/shop carried serious risks of receiving an infestation of some bugs (bedbugs, cockroaches, etc).

So one had to be wary of this and not put such stray books right into the bookshelf with the rest of the good books. Thus some valuable books did have bugs.

I could imagine a possible bug infestation in a stack of punch cards. Though the program printout can have "bugs" by association with a book.

Post reply on HN