This article is about plugboards, or control panels, in unit record machines, cypher machines and early computers. For other uses, see Plug board.
IBM 402 accounting machine control panel[1] wiring. This board was labeled "profit & loss summary."Reverse side of the same 402 plugboard, showing the pins that make contact with the machine's internal wiring. The holes were called hubs.
A plugboard or control panel (the term used depends on the application area) is an array of jacks or sockets (often called hubs) 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. The array of holes is often contained in a flat removable panel that can be inserted into a machine and pressed against an array of contacts. This allows the machine to be quickly switched between different applications.
The contacts on the machine are hard wired to the various devices that comprise the machine, such as relays, counters, inputs from each card reader column, outputs to a card punch column or printer position, and so on. The wiring on a plugboard connects these devices to perform a specific function, say reading cards and summing up the numbers punched in a group of columns. A modern comparison would be a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), with the plugboard serving the same purpose as the wiring layer in the FPGA.
^IBM Accounting Machine: 402, 403 and 419 Principles of Operation. 1949. 22-5654.
A plugboard or control panel (the term used depends on the application area) is an array of jacks or sockets (often called hubs) into which patch cords...
Enigma models were produced, but the German military models, having a plugboard, were the most complex. Japanese and Italian models were also in use....
properly enforced, would have made the plugboard Enigma machine unbreakable to the Allies at that time. The German plugboard-equipped Enigma became the principal...
then R is transformed into A. The plugboard transformation maintained the self-inverse quality, but the plugboard wiring, unlike the rotor positions...
computer program in the macOS operating system Web hosting control panel Plugboard, also called a control panel Telephone switchboard, a manual exchange...
wiring of its plugboard, and punch results onto the same card. A separate IBM 521 Card Read/Punch processed the cards and had its own plugboard which selected...
were connected to function panels by plugging heavy black cables into plugboards. Each function table had 728 rotating knobs. Programming the ENIAC also...
(rotors and a reflector) that scrambled the input. The machine used a plugboard to swap pairs of letters, and the encipherment varied from one key press...
Board exploited the self-reciprocity of the plugboard element of the Enigma; that is, if on the plugboard, letter B is Steckered (plugged) to letter G...
and data as opposed to designs which use a mechanism such as discrete plugboard wiring or fixed control circuitry for instruction implementation. Stored-program...
and control signals between modules, Cockerell employed a small matrix plugboard (patchboard) into which the user stuck special conductive pins that connected...
substitution. Keys were easily changed by changing the rotor disks and the plugboard wires. Although these encryption methods were more complex than previous...
was organized for encryption as follows: An input typewriter An input plugboard that permutes the letters from the typewriter keyboard and separates them...
Remington Rand 409, a punched card calculator which was programmed with a plugboard, was designed in 1949.[citation needed] It was sold in two models: the...
machine code: Since the plugboard was mapped to series 3, some extensions and subroutines eventually became shipped as pre-wired plugboard programs. One such...
Marian Rejewski, the Polish cryptographer and mathematician who solved the plugboard-equipped Enigma used by Nazi Germany, approached the problem through permutation...
The IBM 608 Transistor Calculator, a plugboard-programmable unit, was the first IBM product to use transistor circuits without any vacuum tubes and is...
settings used for an Enigma message (i.e., rotor order, rotor settings and plugboard settings) using a suitable crib: a fragment of probable plaintext. For...
were programmed on rows of mechanical switches or by jumper wires on plugboards. These were special-purpose systems that, for example, generated ballistics...
carriage. Line formatting was programmed by inserting wire jumpers into a plugboard control panel. The printer mechanism used an eight sided, seven position...
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