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A punched card is a piece of card stock that stores digital data using punched holes. Punched cards were once common in data processing and the control of automated machines.
A rotary dial is a component of a telephone or a telephone switchboard that implements a signaling technology in telecommunications known as pulse dialing. It is used when initiating a telephone call to transmit the destination telephone number to a telephone exchange.
Peg solitaire, Solo Noble or simply Solitaire is a board game for one player involving movement of pegs on a board with holes. Some sets use marbles in a board with indentations. The game is known as solitaire in Britain and as peg solitaire in the US where 'solitaire' is now the common name for patience. It is also called Brainvita in India, where sets are sold commercially under this name.
The Tower of Hanoi is a mathematical game or puzzle consisting of three rods and a number of disks of various diameters, which can slide onto any rod. The puzzle begins with the disks stacked on one rod in order of decreasing size, the smallest at the top, thus approximating a conical shape. The objective of the puzzle is to move the entire stack to one of the other rods, obeying the following rules:
- Only one disk may be moved at a time.
- Each move consists of taking the upper disk from one of the stacks and placing it on top of another stack or on an empty rod.
- No disk may be placed on top of a disk that is smaller than it.
Dynamic random-access memory is a type of random-access semiconductor memory that stores each bit of data in a memory cell, usually consisting of a tiny capacitor and a transistor, both typically based on metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) technology. While most DRAM memory cell designs use a capacitor and transistor, some only use two transistors. In the designs where a capacitor is used, the capacitor can either be charged or discharged; these two states are taken to represent the two values of a bit, conventionally called 0 and 1. The electric charge on the capacitors gradually leaks away; without intervention the data on the capacitor would soon be lost. To prevent this, DRAM requires an external memory refresh circuit which periodically rewrites the data in the capacitors, restoring them to their original charge. This refresh process is the defining characteristic of dynamic random-access memory, in contrast to static random-access memory (SRAM) which does not require data to be refreshed. Unlike flash memory, DRAM is volatile memory, since it loses its data quickly when power is removed. However, DRAM does exhibit limited data remanence.
Cribbage, or crib, is a card game, traditionally for two players, that involves playing and grouping cards in combinations which gain points. It can be adapted for three or four players.
Mastermind or Master Mind is a code-breaking game for two players invented in Israel. It resembles an earlier pencil and paper game called Bulls and Cows that may date back a century.
TwixT is a two-player strategy board game, an early entrant in the 1960s 3M bookshelf game series. It became one of the most popular and enduring games in the series. It is a connection game where players alternate turns placing pegs and links on a pegboard in an attempt to link their opposite sides. While TwixT itself is simple, the game also requires strategy, so young children can play it, but it also appeals to adults. The game has been discontinued except in Germany and Japan.
Bagatelle is a billiards-derived indoor table game, the object of which is to get a number of balls past wooden pins into holes that are guarded by wooden pegs; penalties are incurred if the pegs are knocked over. It probably developed from the table made with raised sides for trou madame, which was also played with ivory balls and continued to be popular into the later 19th century, after which it developed into bar billiards, with influences from the French/Belgian game billard russe. A bagatelle variant using fixed metal pins, billard japonais, eventually led to the development of pachinko and pinball.
A clothespin or clothes peg is a fastener used to hang up clothes for drying, usually on a clothes line. Clothespins come in many different designs.
A keypunch is a device for precisely punching holes into stiff paper cards at specific locations as determined by keys struck by a human operator. Other devices included here for that same function include the gang punch, the pantograph punch, and the stamp. The term was also used for similar machines used by humans to transcribe data onto punched tape media.
The tabulating machine was an electromechanical machine designed to assist in summarizing information stored on punched cards. Invented by Herman Hollerith, the machine was developed to help process data for the 1890 U.S. Census. Later models were widely used for business applications such as accounting and inventory control. It spawned a class of machines, known as unit record equipment, and the data processing industry.
The traverse board is a tool formerly used in dead reckoning navigation to easily record the speeds and directions sailed during a watch. Even crew members who could not read or write could use the traverse board.
A plugboard or control panel is an array of jacks or sockets into which patch cords can be inserted to complete an electrical circuit. Control panels are sometimes used to direct the operation of unit record equipment, cipher machines, and early computers.
Perfection is a game originally produced by the Pennsylvania company Reed Toys and then by the Milton Bradley company. The object is to put all the pieces into matching holes on the board before the time limit runs out. When time runs out, the board springs up, causing many, if not all, of the pieces to fly out. In the most common version, there are 25 pieces to be placed into a 5×5 grid within 60 seconds.
The Game of Life, also known simply as Life, is a board game originally created in 1860 by Milton Bradley as The Checkered Game for Life, the first ever board game for his own company, the Milton Bradley Company. The Game of Life was US's first popular parlour game. The game simulates a person's travels through their life, from early adulthood to retirement, with college if necessary, jobs, marriage, and possible children along the way. Up to six players, depending on the version, can participate in a single game. Variations of the game accommodate up to ten players.
Pegity is a strategic board game originally published by Parker Brothers in 1925 that is similar to Gomoku.
The Monotype system is a system for printing by hot-metal typesetting from a keyboard. The two most significant differences from the competing Linotype machine are that
In electronics, a chip carrier is one of several kinds of surface-mount technology packages for integrated circuits. Connections are made on all four edges of a square package; compared to the internal cavity for mounting the integrated circuit, the package overall size is large.
Trictrac is a French board game of skill and chance for two players that is played with dice on a game board similar, but not identical, to that of backgammon. It was "the classic tables game" of France in the way that backgammon is in the English-speaking world.
References
- Alex Grandell, "The Accounting Historians Journal" Spring 1977.
- Damerow, Peter (1996). Abstraction and representation: essays on the cultural evolution of thinking. Springer. ISBN 978-0-7923-3816-1.