Tech History Today – September 9, 2013

In 1940 – At McNutt Hall at Dartmouth College, George Stibitz demonstrated the first remote operation of a computer. He connected to his Complex Number Generator at Bell labs by telephone using 28-wire teletype cable.

In 1947 – While troubleshooting the Harvard University Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator, operators found a moth trapped between the points of relay #70 in Panel F. They affixed the bug to the log and wrote “First actual case of bug being found.” While this was not the first use of the term ’bug’ for a computer problem, ‘debugging’ became popular for fixing bugs after this case.

In 1999 – The Sega Dreamcast debuted in North America. However many were distracted by the supposed 9/9/99 bug that ended up being just as much of a non-problem as the Y2K bug.

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