bit-bucket

Noun

bit bucket (plural bit buckets)

1. (historical) A container for holding chad (“small punched-out pieces of paper”) from paper tape or punch cards used with teleprinters, early computers, and other machines.
   • The lost bits fall into a container called a bit bucket. They are emptied periodically and the collected bits are used for confetti at weddings, parties, and other festive occasions.1964, Donald I. Cutler, chapter 6, in Introduction to Computer Programming, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, →OCLC, footnote 1, page 108

   Synonyms:

   chad box

2. (broadly, humorous, slang) An imaginary domain that accepts lost, discarded, or useless digital data that does not reach its intended destination, such as data lost in transmission or due to errors; the notional resting place of lost or missing digital information.
   • Applications [...] Overflow register (bit bucket)[1972], Fully Encoded, 9046 × N, Random Access Write-Only-Memory: Final Specification (Signetics; 25120), [Sunnyvale, Calif.]: Signetics, archived from the original on 16 Mar 2012, page 1, column 1

   Synonyms:

   black hole, byte bucket, great bit bucket in the sky, memory hole

See all 3 meanings of bit bucket