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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>More on "chip(s)", following up on G Cohen's quote
of Jensen below. The inventor who testified in the Bush v. Gore
Florida trial about voting machines (I forget his name) made a point of saying
that he called the waste matter "chips", not "chads". He was in the
industry, and clearly very familiar with punch cards and their use. His
invention of those voting machines dates back to the 1970s at least -- I came
across one of his patents in searching the US patent site.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>This and what Jensen says below suggests that in
the IBM-centered punch-card community, "chips" was the word for the waste from
the cards.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Given the possible origin of "chad" from a Scottish
dialect word, and the fact that no one (despite much searching) has found an
earlier US cite of "chad" than 1947, I have thought that the origin might be
from the UK, transferred to US speakers during WWII, perhaps via contacts in the
military or intelligence communities, where teletype and paper tapes were in
regular use. I did some searching of patents on the UK govt site (in the
UK, patents are handled by a sub-department of the Dept of Trade and Industry),
but have found nothing earlier yet. That site, btw, is pretty good -- not
as easy to use as the USPTO, but it does search patents worldwide, including
European, Japanese, and US patents, and searchable by language.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I expect someone will find "the missing
chad" at some point.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Frank Abate</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=gcohen@UMR.EDU href="mailto:gcohen@UMR.EDU">Gerald Cohen</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=ADS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
href="mailto:ADS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU">ADS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Saturday, January 06, 2001 12:30 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> chad--background info from C. Jensen</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<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 cite type="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 cite type="cite"> </BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE cite type="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 cite type="cite"> </BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE cite type="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 cite type="cite"> </BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE cite type="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 cite type="cite"> </BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=-1>T</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>