where did the term 'garbage in, garbage out' aka gigo, originate?

Answer 1

Michael Quinion looked into the origins a while back, and found it first used in a 1963 article talking about the early move to computers at the U.S. IRS.

Answer 2

Garbage In, Garbage Out


Garbage In, Garbage Out (abbreviated to GIGO) is an aphorism in the field of computer science. It refers to the fact that computers, unlike humans, will unquestioningly process the most nonsensical of input data and produce nonsensical output. It was most popular in the early days of computing, but has fallen out of use as programs have become more sophisticated and now usually have checks built in to reject improper input.

GIGO is usually said in response to users who complain that a program did not "do the right thing" when given imperfect input. The first example of this was probably cited by Charles Babbage, inventor of the first programmable device who said "On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." It is also commonly used to describe failures in human decision making due to faulty, incomplete, or imprecise data. For example, a badly written TeX document will look bad because the user did not correctly typeset the TeX source properly.

Another, more recent, meaning of GIGO is Garbage In, Gospel Out. This phrase is a sardonic comment on the human tendency to accept the results from computer systems with unquestioning faith. An example of this blind-faith GIGO mentality is to believe that your work, stored in a computer, will be there whenever you need it even though you never perform data backup or virus scan.

It can also be used as an explanation for the poor quality of a digitized audio or video file. Although digitizing is the first step in cleaning up a signal, it does not, by itself, improve the quality. Defects in the original analog signal will be faithfully recorded, but may be identified and removed by a subsequent step.

Answer 3

I think it's an old computing term from back in the 70's. I.E. if you enter garbage data, you're not going to get an accurate answer. It applies to so many aspects of life.

Answer 4

It was a way to describe a Christians behaviour from 100bc
and you can't prove me rong!!!

Answer 5

When talking about computers

Answer 6

The computer industry! fortran I think