The Day a Real Bug Broke a Computer

One machine had a real bug inside it. Send this to the coder in your life. In nineteen forty-seven, one of the first big computers in the world suddenly stopped working correctly, and nobody could find the problem.

Mashine moja ilikuwa na mdudu halisi ndani yake. Tuma hii kwa mwandishi wa programu katika maisha yako. Mwaka wa elfu moja mia tisa arobaini na saba, mojawapo ya kompyuta kubwa za kwanza duniani ghafla ilikoma kufanya kazi vizuri, na hakuna aliyeweza kupata tatizo.

Engineers searched through the machine's huge wall of switches and wires until they found the cause stuck between two metal contacts: a dead moth. They removed it, taped its body into their logbook, and wrote a short note next to it about finding an actual bug inside the machine.

Wahandisi walichunguza kuta kubwa za kompyuta hiyo zenye swichi na waya mpaka wakapata chanzo kikiwa kimekwama kati ya vipimo viwili vya chuma: nondo aliyekufa. Waliondoa mdudu huyo, wakamgandamiza kwenye kitabu chao cha kumbukumbu, na kuandika maelezo mafupi karibu naye kuhusu kupata mdudu halisi ndani ya mashine.

The word bug already meant a small problem in a machine before that day, but the taped moth became famous anyway, and it is still kept in a museum. Ever since, fixing a computer problem has been called debugging, whether or not any actual insect is involved.

Neno mdudu lilikuwa tayari linamaanisha tatizo dogo katika mashine kabla ya siku hiyo, lakini nondo huyo aliyegandamizwa alijulikana sana hata hivyo, na bado anahifadhiwa kwenye jumba la makumbusho. Tangu wakati huo, kurekebisha tatizo la kompyuta huitwa kuondoa mdudu, iwe kuna mdudu halisi anayehusika au la.