VDict mobile



hardware A card punch which cut little U-shapes in
punched cards, rather than punching out a circle or
rectangle. The U's made a hole when folded back.
One of the Jargon File's correspondents believed that the
term "chad" derived from the Chadless keypunch. Obviously,
if the Chadless keypunch didn't make them, then the stuff that
other keypunches made had to be "chad". The assertion that
the keypunch was named after its inventor is not supported by
any record in US or UK patents or surname references.
(2000-11-22)