Chad (paper) device which will not punch a complete circle in the tape but, instead, will only cut approximately three-quarters of the circumference of a circle ... thereby leaving a movable, or hinged, lid of paper in the tape." In the "New Hacker's Dictionary", two unattributed and likely humorous derivations for "chad" are offered, a back-formation from a personal name "Chadless" and an acronym for "Card Hole Aggregate Debris". Other etymologies claim derivation from the Scottish name for river gravel, "chad", or the British slang for louse, "chat". When a chad is not fully detached, it is described by various terms corresponding
Punched card Fold, Spindle or Mutilate", coined by Charles A. Phillips, It became a motto for the post-World War II era (even though many people had no idea what spindle meant), and was widely mocked and satirised - for example by students at Berkeley in the 1960s wearing buttons saying: "Do not fold, spindle or mutilate. I am a student". Processing of punched cards was handled by a variety of machines, including: Punched card A punched card or punch card is a piece of stiff paper that can be used to contain digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes