Digitor Arithmetic Training Apparatus
date: label: date made
content: ca 1975
name: label: maker
content: Centurion Industries Incorporated
notes: label: Description
content: During the late 1950s and 1960s, American scientists and educators proposed using machines for instruction. Teaching machines and related programmed textbooks used a careful sequence of questions for teaching. Jerome C. Meyer and later William R. Hafel, both of Sunnydale, California, believed that it would be more efficient to use randomly generated problems. Given a problem, a student entered the answer. A correct answer elicited a new problem. These ideas were incorporated in this teaching device, the Digitor.
label: Description
content: The instrument, introduced by the California firm Centurion Industries in 1974, used an Intel microchip and boasted a space-age look. It taught basic arithmetic. More recently, electronic calculators have become common at more advanced levels of mathematics teaching.
label: Description
content: Reference:
label: Description
content: P. A. Kidwell, A. Ackerberg-Hastings, and D. L. Roberts, <I>Tools of American Mathematics Teaching</I>, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008, pp. 259-260.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: California, Redwood City
topic: label: web subject
content: Mathematics
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Computers
label: See more items in
content: Learning Arithmetic
label: See more items in
content: Science & Mathematics
label: See more items in
content: Arithmetic Teaching
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Centurion Industries Incorporated
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1986.0507.01
label: catalog number
content: 1986.0507.01
label: accession number
content: 1986.0507
objectType: label: Object Name
content: special purpose computer
label: Object Name
content: special purpose computer1
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: plastic (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: rubber (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 25 cm x 19.8 cm x 19.8 cm; 9 27/32 in x 7 25/32 in x 7 25/32 in