Tech Fun Fact of the Month
One short, true, slightly surprising story from the world of technology. New one every month.
This month: October
The first message sent over the internet’s ancestor was cut short
On October 29, 1969, researchers at UCLA tried to send the first message over ARPANET, the network that grew into today’s internet, to a computer at the Stanford Research Institute. They meant to type “LOGIN.” The system crashed after the first two letters, so the very first message was simply “LO.” About an hour later they got it working.
From the archive
The original “bug”
In 1947, operators of the Harvard Mark II computer found a moth stuck in a relay and taped it into the logbook, noting the “first actual case of bug being found.” Engineers had already used “bug” for technical faults for decades, but the moth made the story famous.
The first webcam watched a coffee pot
In the early 1990s, researchers at the University of Cambridge pointed a camera at the coffee pot in their computer lab so they could check whether there was coffee before walking down the hall. The picture was later put on the web for anyone to view.
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