A narrow notch, groove or opening, as in a keyway in a piece of machinery or a slit for a coin in a vending machine. Also, a position or time in a group, series or sequence: He has a slot as editor of the Gazette.
In a computer, a slot is an empty socket into which a plug-in card may be inserted. A motherboard may contain several slots for expansion cards, each of which provides a different function. For example, one may be used for a hard disk drive while another is for an audio/video card. In a slot-based system, the operating system allocates memory for each card according to its requirements.
A slot is also a reserved place in a computer for a special type of hardware. For instance, a computer running Microsoft Windows will have several slots for RAM (random access memory). These are sometimes referred to as “memory slots” or “MB-ROM slots”. The OS assigns the necessary amount of memory to each slot as it is needed. The more memory a slot contains, the faster the system will run.
The slot is also a term in aviation for a scheduled time for an aircraft to take off or land. Airlines must be given slots in order to fly at an airport, and these are often limited by the capacity of the runways. Air traffic control authorities in Europe, for example, use slots to manage congestion and improve efficiency.
To play a slot machine, you insert money or, in a “ticket-in, ticket-out” machine, a paper ticket with a barcode, into a designated slot on the machine’s front panel. The machine then activates reels that rotate and stop to rearrange symbols. When a winning combination appears, the player receives credits based on the paytable. Most slot games have a theme, and the symbols vary according to that theme.
Some slot machines have a “buy a line” feature, which allows players to select the number of pay lines they want to play. Each pay line is indicated by a different color on the machine’s display. In addition, most slots weigh particular symbols differently, so they appear more often on the winning pay line than on the losing ones.
When a slot machine malfunctions, it is said to have a “tilt”. This is a reference to electromechanical slot machines’ tilt switches, which made or broke a circuit that triggered an alarm when the machine was touched. Modern slot machines no longer have tilt switches, but any kind of technical fault, such as a door switch in the wrong position or a paper jam in the dispenser, is called a tilt. This is the most common reason for a slot machine to fail.