Answer · Which one? · it targets
Element 15
Take one of the options offered.
menu · radio buttons · picker
First known
From a history
1950Bertie the Brain, Toronto (Josef Kates): players pick among nine squares on a keypad.
See also: Nimrod (1951) and OXO (1952), unverified; AMBIT/G menus, 1968.
Canadian National Exhibition.
Dated by a reputable history or a participant's own account. The source.
- ReadingValue
Specimen № 15 — operate freely
Sweep the band. Only one station at a time — physics says so.
Fig. 15 — Radio Dial
000 readings · idle
Anatomy of Radio Dial
- 01Tune
- You
- Turns the dial.
- It
- Sweeps through static.
- 02Find
- You
- Lands near a station.
- It
- Locks on. Only one can play.
- 03Switch
- You
- Moves on.
- It
- Lets the last station go as the next arrives.
Phases light as the specimen above registers them. The dark ones are the ones it can't sense.
Lineage
Radio buttons are named for car radios, where pushing in one station's button popped the others out. The GUI kept the name and the rule: one choice at a time.
Under delegation
Dissolves
- Survives
- Mutates
- Dissolves
Radio buttons force one choice among a few known options. Models are good at the case they can't handle: the option that isn't listed. The widget won't vanish, but the question changes from "which of these?" to "which of these, or tell me what you actually want".
Down the Answer column
- it followsTgToggle
- it targetsChChoose
- it remembersCfConfirm
- it connectsRsRespond
- it guessesAcAccept
- it actsApApprove
Read down and Toggle gets heavier: each step is the same act, on a machine that keeps track of more.
Bodies
The act stays put while the hardware changes. These are some of the forms Choose takes.
- picker
From the 2021 table
This was a tile of its own. On this table it is a form of Choose, and its old address lands here.
- Radio DialIsotopeThe same act in another body.Operate ↑