Who What or Where Game technology question

[Kniwt]

Prompted by this weekend's upcoming game of the 3 Ws at Throwdown, I went back to watch the little surviving material. And listening to all the pushbutton sounds when players declare and reveal their wagers, I had a question:

Has anyone ever described the console that players had in front of them to make their wagers? I could it imagine being something like:

-WHO- -WHAT- -WHERE-
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
-ERASE- -LOCK- -REVEAL-

I'm just blowing smoke out my posterior, but that seems like at least an educated guess. Did the contestant console directly control the display, or were the wagers passed to a stagehand who put them into the display? I wonder about that because, on the first question in the clip below, the first wager shows up in the first two digit positions, and it "magically" moves into the second and third digit positions after being revealed.

If anyone (oh, Mr. G?) just happened to have an actual photo of what the players saw in front of them, well, that would be just super keen.

[SFQuizKid]

I visited the show when I was 11 (OK, my aunt lied about my age!) and during a break got to see the set. Here's what I remember:

The selections for category (who/what/where) and amount were entered on what looked like cash register keypads--vertical columns of mechanical buttons that would lock down when pressed. If I recall correctly, there were no zero buttons--just vertical columns of buttons with 9 at the top and 1 at the bottom. Who/What/Where were on one side labeled with Dymo labels.

Years later (~1990) I got to rummage through some "spare parts" bins at Stiegelbauer scene shop in Brooklyn (http://sai-nyc.com/) and came across some very familiar looking matrix switch sets. (BTW, Mike Stiegelbauer worked at NBC for many years).  Here's what I can surmise: The number and category buttons were released by 24 volt relays. The individual wager displays (IEE one-plane readouts) were all turned on by a set of relays.

Watching the clip, I think I hear the contestants pushing the mechanical buttons for the wagers and then all of the relays engaging to turn on the displays when Art says "Declare!"

As for the magical movement of the first wager, I heard no "thunks" when the "25" moved so it may have been entered on a separate controller run by the stagehands.   

[Kniwt]

Ooooh, that's interesting information; thanks.

Indeed, as I think more about the technology of the time, it makes sense that each digit in the wagering section would be controlled by a separate set of pushbuttons. (Although I don't see how they could get by without "zero" buttons.) And then there would be no need for an "erase" button, since the player could just press a different button in the same column (or even to change, say, from "Who" to "What").

I think the contestants still controlled their individual reveals, though: In the clip, they can rather clearly be seen pressing something to reveal their wagers. Maybe there was a master on/off to the displays so that a contestant couldn't accidentally reveal early.

Agreed; it definitely looks like some type of stagehand override existed.

[Clay Zambo]

No zero-buttons? How 'bout "if you don't punch a button in a column it displays a zero"?

http://l7.alamy.com/zooms/d9ddd267a48c4c8da86e4f95ff494089/the-keyboard-on-an-old-cash-register-bha527.jpg

Or, more likely:
http://tinyurl.com/ydg5gxcy

[SFQuizKid]

Search "pushbutton bank switches."  (Like these: https://www.surplussales.com/Switches/SWPushB-2.html) It took me a little while to remember what those things were called.

The displays, by the way, were "IEE One Plane Readouts." The characters themselves were simply images on film.  It was common at the time to replace the standard 0-9 Futura font digits with other characters.  See http://www.tubecollection.de/ura/gluehlampenanzeigen.htm. Each character was illuminated with its own lamp so there was no need for any fancy encoder/decoder circuitry.

[Unrealtor]

I think that they had to have specific zero buttons. On the third question (about 5:10 in the video above), we the same thing with the digits shifting to the right after Claire's wager of $20 is revealed. Without a zero button, the logical thing for a 2 in the first position and nothing in the second or third would be to light up "200", not "20".