Bit bucket
Lost data in computing
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In computing jargon, the bit bucket (or byte bucket[2][3]) 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.[4][5]
The errant byte, having failed the parity test, is unceremoniously dumped into the bit bucket, the computer's wastepaper basket.
— Erik Sandberg-Diment, New York Times, 1985.[5]
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?
— W. Paul Blase, The Washington Post, 1990.[6]
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;[1] 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.[7]
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.[8]
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".[9]
In programming languages the term is used to denote a bitstream which does not consume any computer resources, such as CPU or memory, by discarding any data "written" to it. In .NET Framework-based languages, it is the System.IO.Stream.Null.[10]
