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Jensen</title></head><body>
<div> Several days ago I posted a message from
Mr. Chris Jensen about his hearing the term "chad" in 1952
when training in the US Army's teletype school. On Jan. 4 I received
another message from him with some interesting background information
and will now present excerpts (beneath my signature).</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>---Gerald Cohen</div>
<div><br>
<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial" size="-1">(...) I
later worked for IBM, selling punch-card processing systems. The
current press attributes the word to the punch-card culture that
resides in ballots and voting machines. Interestingly, at no time in
my 24-year IBM career did I hear anyone use the word
"chad." We always used 'chip' and 'chips.' The piece of any
machine that collected the chips was called the "chip box."
That was both common usage and the name of the box in manuals, parts
lists, etc.</font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> </blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial" size="-1">Rectangular
punch-card chips collected in chip boxes until the box was manually
dumped. Users were cautioned to be careful with chips because they
could injure an eye if lodged there. That admonishment was directed
to those who would playfully dump the contents of the chip box on
another person as though it were confetti. Chips with their
pointed corners were potentially hazardous, while I've never heard
the same of confetti.</font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> </blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial" size="-1">My
vocational path diverged from that of the people in IBM who sold
and support voting machine systems and I didn't have reason or
opportunity to keep up with that segment of the business. Possibly
they got to know the word 'chad' as defining chips from
ballots. If so, I don't know why they adopted that
usage. </font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> </blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial" size="-1">In the Army
we carefully disposed of the chad from perforators so as to not leave
anything behind a moving field unit that could identify that unit's
purpose or equipment. Chadless perforators didn't leave chad. In
either case, we had to manage the disposition of the perforated tape
in equal fashion.</font> (...)</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> </blockquote>
<div><font face="Arial" size="-1">T</font></div>
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