Bit bucket

In computing jargon, the bit bucket (or byte bucket[2][3]) is where lost computerized data has gone, by any means; any data which does not end up where it is supposed to, being lost in transmission, a computer crash, or the like, is said to have gone to the bit bucket – that mysterious place on a computer where lost data goes, as in: The errant byte, having failed the parity test, is unceremoniously dumped into the bit bucket, the computer's wastepaper basket.Millions of dollars in time and research data gone into the bit-bucket?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.

[6] 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.

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".

[8] 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.