Bit bucket
computing jargon term
In computing jargon, the bit bucket (or byte bucket) is the notional, metaphorical destination of any computerized data which does not go to a useful destination, for any reason. For example, the bit bucket may refer to the destination of data lost in transmission, or data lost in a computer crash, or simply data which is intentionally discarded.
The errant byte, having failed the parity test, is unceremoniously dumped into the bit bucket, the computer's wastepaper basket.
The term is also used metaphorically to refer to any waste in pursuit of computer science:
Millions of dollars in time and research data gone into the bit-bucket?
History
Originally, the bit bucket was the container on teletype machines or IBM key punch machines into which chad from the paper tape punch or card punch was deposited; the formal name is "chad box" or (at IBM) "chip box". The term was then generalized into any place where useless bits go, a useful computing concept known as the null device. The term bit bucket is also used in discussions of bit shift operations.
The bit bucket is related to the first in never out buffer and write-only memory, in a joke datasheet issued by Signetics in 1972.
In a 1988 April Fool's article in Compute! magazine, Atari BASIC author Bill Wilkinson presented a POKE that implemented what he called a "WORN" (Write Once, Read Never) device, "a close relative of the WORM".
The public source identifies “Bit bucket” as computing jargon term. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around bucket, computing and jargon.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bit bucket” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.