Hopper was involved with programming the Mark I from the very start.
One of her most significant contributions to the field of computing was the concept of a compiler. Hopper was
troubled by the mistake-plagued nature of code writing, and developed a piece of software that would translate
an entire set of programmer??™s instructions, written in a high-level symbolic language, into the machine??™s language.
The first compiler developed by Hopper was named A-0, and was written in 1952.
Grace Murray Hopper is also credited as the individual who coined the term ???bug.??? During the summer of
1947 the Mark II computer, a successor to the Mark I, was acting strangely. At times it would produce the correct
answer, and at other times the same program would produce erroneous results. Hopper traced the problem
down to a faulty relay within the computer. When she physically examined the relay to correct the problem, she
discovered that a moth had been trapped in the relay, causing it to malfunction. Once she removed the moth
from the relay, the machine functioned normally. The ???bug??? was taped onto a page of the laboratory??™s notebook
with the inscription ???First actual bug found.???
After World War II ended, the allies discovered that Konard Zuse, a German engineer, had been developing
computers for use by the Germans.
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