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"We [science fiction writers] always wanted to believe in "private sector" space -- hucksters make better characters than a government does."
- Larry Niven

Chalf-Memory Stick  
  Device that organizes special dust in the shape of words and symbols.  

This is what you use on your chalf; it's kind of like printing carbon powder onto paper - without the paper.

Watt pushed himself back from his desk, eyeing the powder with suspicion. He took a cautious sniff, smelled chalf, the quick-scribe powder. Still...

"So scribe it," Watt said.

Concealing his elation, McKie held a chalf-memory stick over the dusted surface. A broken circle with arrows pointing to a right-hand flow appeared in the chalf.

From The Tactful Saboteur, by Frank Herbert.
Published by Galaxy in 1964
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