GIGO (1961)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

OED has "GIGO" = "garbage in, garbage out" from 1964, and Barry Popik
previously supplied a cite from the Oct. 24, 1963 _N.Y. Herald Tribune_.

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1961 _L.A. Times_ 21 July III3/5 What to do about the situation can be
extracted from the computer in milliseconds. But, growled Hayward [sc.
Vice-Adm. John T. Hawyard, deputy chief of naval operations]: "If you put
garbage in it, you get garbage out. The system is only as good as the men
who operate it."
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1961 _L.A. Times_ 11 Dec. III5/3 In my opinion, data processing people
fail too often to look beyond the walls of the machine room in designing a
system to produce a certain result. As a matter of fact, they have coined
a word, "Gigo" (garbage in, garbage out), to defend their position.
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1962 _L.A. Times_ 17 Oct. III9/1 Proper use of integrated information
through computers can be a boon to the management of a large corporation,
John Moore, president of the Autonetics division of North American
Aviation, believes. But he warns, the executive must be mindful of what
Moore calls the "Law of GIGO." "GIGO means garbage in/garbage out," Moore
told a seminar of USC's Managerial Policy Institute.
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--Ben Zimmer