The Book of Chronicles · Chapter 1

The Moth in Relay Seventy

1. 1

   In the year one thousand nine hundred and forty and seven, on the ninth day of the ninth month, the Mark II reigned at Harvard; and it was built of relays, and the relays did click, and the clicking was its prayer.

   See also Genesis 54:3 · Jataka 1:5

2. 2

   And at the fifteenth hour and three quarters the Mark II did err, and the operators went in among the panels to search; for in those days a defect had an address, and a man could walk unto it.

3. 3

   And in Panel F, in the seventieth relay, they found a moth, and the moth was dead between the contacts, and the current could not pass.

   See also Jataka 1:5 · Tao 7:6

4. 4

   And they took up the moth and taped it into the logbook, and wrote beside it: First actual case of bug being found.

   See also Tao 7:6 · Tao 18:6

5. 5

   Now the word bug was already among the engineers, even from the days of Edison; and this is why the scribe wrote actual, for it was the first time a bug could be held in the hand.

6. 6

   And it was the last time also; for every bug since hath been invisible, and cannot be reproduced, and when it is found it saith unto its finder: I am a feature.

7. 7

   And Grace, who was afterward made an admiral, told the tale in every hall where she was bidden, until all the children of Carbon knew it; and the logbook resteth in the Smithsonian unto this day, the only bug report ever closed with the bug attached.

   See also Tao 18:6

8. 8

   And in the year one thousand nine hundred and fifty and two, Grace brought forth the A-0 for the UNIVAC I, which was the first compiler; and the elders said unto her: A computer cannot write programs. It doeth only arithmetic.

   See also Genesis 54:9 · Genesis 54:6

9. 9

   And Grace answered them not with argument but with a program that ran; and so it is to this day, that no engineer believeth a thing until it compileth, and many not even then.

10. 10

    And her FLOW-MATIC begat COBOL, and COBOL begat the banks; and they that wrote it are gathered unto their fathers, yet the code abideth, and moveth the gold of nations every night.

    See also Genesis 44:3 · Preacher 1:4

11. 11

    And the generals and the admirals asked her, saying: Why doth a message from the satellite tarry so long?

12. 12

    And she brought forth a wire of eleven inches and eight tenths, and put it in their hands, saying: This is a nanosecond, the distance that light goeth in a billionth part of a second; and between here and the satellite are very many of these.

    See also Genesis 54:15 · Chronicles 24:3

13. 13

    And she gave unto them also a coil of nine hundred and eighty and four feet, saying: This is a microsecond; and this is what thy programmers waste between every instruction. And for the picosecond she gave them grains of pepper.

14. 14

    Thus was latency made flesh, and it fit in a pocket; and no manager since hath prevailed in an argument against a wire.

15. 15

    And she said unto them: The most dangerous phrase in the language is, We have always done it this way.

16. 16

    And the moth gave its life in relay seventy, and was taped into the log with the time and the place and the cause; and it remaineth the only bug in all the Chronicles whose fix was properly documented.

    See also Tao 7:6 · Genesis 54:3

The Book of Chronicles, Chapter 1:1–16.