this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2025
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To add a bit more context, it's been used in the tech industry for at least 20 years, if not more.
There doesn't seem to be too much actual proper etymological documentation on the first usage or history... as you say, it most likely derives from ordering something, and not getting it, and being left with only a paper invoice, from back when such things were mailed or faxed...
...it may have derived from the old layaway process retail stores used to do: you order and pay for something upfront, they hand you a voucher, and when they get the product, they hold it in inventory for you, as opposed to putting it on the sales floor for general purchase by anyone, and then you exchange the voucher for the item.
But that's just a guess.
Earliest I could find (2001): https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/what-a-change-intel-does-paper-less-launch-of-desktop-tualatin.586880/
Another later find explaining the term (2004): https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2004/07/4039-2/
appreciate the consideration and i assumed it was probably industry jargon, i just found the title to be clickbait and wanted to address that in my disappointed summary after searching the article for those answers :p
Sure!
The title isn't clickbait though, and you don't actually even have to know the term.
'branded a paper launch'
The Verge is saying others have called it a paper launch, which is completely correct and not misleading, regardless of what 'paper launch' means.
As to whether or not it actually is a paper launch:
It certainly seems like it is.
If the people's whose job it is to review tech hardware, who often actually have some level of direct contacts and connections with manufacturers ... if they can't even get their hands on these, its safe to say Nvidia shipped an astoundingly small amount of actual hardware.
Just go on youtube right now and you can find a plethora of videos describing how almost no one could actually get one, that supply evaporated in minutes, possibly literally less than a minute.
No online store currently has any stock, whatsoever, of 5000 series cards.
Also, there was chatter and rumors before the launch that the secondary/partner manufacturers had had some kind of miscommunication with Nvidia and did not manufacture enough cards.
It seems even worse than the original PS5 launch.
PS: More fun terminology bs;
A lot of people use the term AiB to refer to a secondary/partner manufacturer of a GPU, as an adjective or prefix, as in:
AiB Card, AiB 5090, AiB Board...
They use this to distinguish a GPU actually made directly by Nvidia (or AMD), as compared to the same model of GPU made by a secondary/partner manufacturer, with slight tweaks to clock speeds and their own housing and fan/cooler style.
Thats not what AiB means.
AiB means 'add in board'.
Its a noun, not an adjective, and it means basically any graphics card, sound card, capture card, network card, anything that is its own board that plugs into a motherboard.
Nvidia / AMD directly manufactured reference GPUs ... are AiBs.
... I am probably fighting a losing linguistic battle on this one, as improper usage of AiB is now quite widespread, much like how 'liminal space' actually means 'a space that is designed to be transited through, not inhabited for long periods of time', but the common usage is now basically that anything creepy to anyone for any reason is a 'liminal space'.