User:JimFremont/sandbox

Bitbucket Derivation: I have 45 years of experience with mainframe computers (98% with IBM). Computer core used to be consisted of metal frames connected together. Inside each metal frame were the cross threading of very small wires containing super small and expensive ferrous iron core rings called bits. The bits would be charged as positive or negative (for binary interpretation) depending on the most recent electrical charge. A microscope was need during frame assembly to thread the ferrous iron core rings with appropriate wiring.

When a wire broke in a frame causing 'a hole in core' which gave spurious computing results, the ferrous iron core rings would fall onto the floor inside the computer and an IBM CE (Customer Engineer) would replace the damaged frame with another. The damaged frame would be sent back to assembly for bit and wiring replacement to be used again. One IBM CE, knowing that the ferrous iron core rings (bits) were expensive to manufacture and replace, placed a bucket under the computer's core to catch any falling bits when any core wire broke. This was the bit bucket which contained the fallen and loose ferrous iron core rings along with the frame needing service. This saved IBM money in computer maintenance costs.

A program has bugs derivation: Early development models on intelligent personal computers were not encased as they are today. At one point, a program that had run many times successfully suddenly started to fail. After a long investigation, it was determined that a bug or a fly was on some wiring that caused a short circuit when a program caused the affected area to execute. The program started to run successfully again after the wiring was cleaned up. Today, a bug in a program usually pertains to a programming logic error such as dividing a quantity by zero, not a hard wiring problem.