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GIGO

Posted by ESC on March 20, 2002

In Reply to: GIGO posted by TheFallen on March 20, 2002

: : hi guys
: : if anyone could help me finding the origin of the phrase " Garbage In Garbage Out, GIGO". I use this phrase when in computer science, however, I do not know the origin of the phrase,,,
: : HELP,,,PL ZZ

: : thanx

: It is indeed a Programming acronym, dating from the 50's I believe, when computers were fed with punched tape. If bad data or bad code were pumped into a computer, then the output was of course garbage. One of the leading lights here will be bound to give you a quotation with near first usage.

No origin yet. But an early use.

GIGO - "n. An acronym formed from 'garbage in, garbage out,' a principle in computing. if the input or program is incorrect, the output will inevitably be incorrect too. 1964 T.W. McRae: 'If the original data supplied to us are inaccurate we have built what the Americans ironically describe as a gigo model, that is ''garbage in, garbage in.'" From "20th Century Words: The Story of New Words in English Over the Last 100 Years" by John Ayto (Oxford University Press, New York, 1999).

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