A slot is a narrow opening, usually in the form of a groove, notch or slit. It may also refer to a position in a schedule or program. The program received a new time slot on the broadcasting schedule.
A slot in a computer is an area of memory that holds data that can be used to store and retrieve information, such as the position of the next available command or the contents of a buffer. The number of slots in a computer depends on the processor type and size, operating system and application.
In the early days of slot machines, people walked up to the machine with coins and pulled a lever to spin the reels. Modern slot games are more complex than that, with themes based on popular movies, TV shows or rock bands. Many of these games have multiple pay lines and bonus features, but they still use a similar basic concept. While most modern machines use random number generators to determine the positions of symbols, some still use a lever as a skeuomorphic design trait.