The press of a single button can mean the difference between winning thousands of dollars on national television \u2014 or winning nothing at all. Jeopardy!\u2019s <\/em>buzzer is arguably the most infamous game show button; over the past 59 years, the \u201csignaling device\u201d has become a behind-the-scenes character of its own. The button on a stick inspires future contestants to train their hand-eye coordination, reaction time, and handling, all in an attempt to gain mere milliseconds over the competition.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n How do you practice such a specific skill set? Jeopardy!<\/em>\u2019s producers don\u2019t hand out buzzers. Many players have used clicky pens or Pez dispensers to simulate the signaling device, but you can\u2019t measure milliseconds of improvement that way. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n What you need is a gadget \u2014 and according to six former Jeopardy! <\/em>contestants who spoke to The Verge<\/em>, the next best thing is a two-ounce aluminum-bodied light-up USB button from a company you\u2019ve probably never heard of.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Delcom Products \u201cUSB HID Hand Held Programmable Button Switch\u201d is a four-inch-long round metal stick with a glowing red LED-equipped plastic button on top and a two-meter USB cable on the end. The $63 gadget feels good in the hand \u2014 there are two subtle strips of diamond knurling toward the top where you can grip the rugged rod between thumb and finger for a great tactile feel. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n The button has a slight indent to hug your thumb while you press it smoothly down into the casing. There\u2019s no click but some springiness; you have to actively use your thumb to hold it down. From first grip, I was convinced I was holding a Jeopardy!<\/em> simulation device.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The most commonly recommended way to train for Jeopardy!<\/em>\u2019s <\/em>button is The Buzzer App. The website mimics the way Jeopardy!<\/em> questions are delivered \u2014 you hear an audio clip of the question, then a signal light tests your reaction time. (You can try it right now with your keyboard\u2019s spacebar.). Buzz in too early, though, and you\u2019ll be \u201clocked out\u201d for a quarter-second, destroying your score. That lockout period happens in actual Jeopardy!<\/em>, and it\u2019s the tricky bit: you need to hit that small window of time between the question and your competitor\u2019s reaction. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n After an afternoon practice session, my fastest score\u00a0was 103 milliseconds, though I\u2019m not sure whether I actually got faster or just managed to time the rhythm.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI am, as far as I know, the accidental Johnny Appleseed of the Delcom buzzer in the Jeopardy! <\/em>community,\u201d Fritz Holznagel tells me. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n A 13-time contestant, Holznagel literally wrote the book on Jeopardy!<\/em>\u2019s buzzer, self-publishing his manifesto Secrets of the Buzzer<\/em> in 2015. Since, it has become almost required reading for Jeopardy!<\/em> trainees after the community started recommending it to their peers. The Buzzer App is also Holznagel\u2019s creation, and he says that for a few years, he and his friend Chris Templeman sold their own hand-built replicas of the buzzer to help people practice. But it was a hassle to produce and ship, and one fellow contestant had a better idea.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt really is (just by coincidence, I think) close to the Jeopardy!<\/em> look and feel.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In 2017, Holznagel says, he met an A.C. Thomas at the Trivia Championships of North America who was also trying to build their own buzzer at home but discovered Delcom\u2019s product instead. He sent the link to Holznagel: \u201cIt really is (just by coincidence, I think) close to the Jeopardy!<\/em> look and feel.\u201d Holznagel has been recommending Delcom\u2019s buzzer to readers of his book ever since.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Even though Delcom\u2019s button is very similar to the Jeopardy!<\/em> signaling device, it\u2019s apparently a\u00a0coincidence. \u201cIt definitely wasn\u2019t made for Jeopardy!<\/em>,\u201d a Delcom sales representative told me over the phone. Delcom Products makes a variety of switches, controllers, modules, and chipsets that are used in fields like medical, aviation, and the military, and this specific switch is intended for \u201cprocess equipment, automated processes, medical equipment, gaming, special needs.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Even though many Jeopardy!<\/em> trainees have reached out to buy the button, the first orders were from a Norwegian defense contractor, Kongsberg Defense and Aerospace, so it could offer a simple push-to-talk interface for air traffic control. This button also made it to Hollywood \u2014 Liam Neeson can be seen using the Delcom to blow up a safe in the 2020 movie Honest Thief.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Since the Delcom button is not exactly the same as the Jeopardy!<\/em> signaling device, it\u2019s not a surefire solution for buzzer champions. Former contestants tell The Verge<\/em> that the signaling device is much lighter than the Delcom\u2019s solid aluminum body and that the Delcom button felt a little springier and \/ or more tactile. Though the Delcom button design is similar, contestants say the Jeopardy! <\/em>signaling device was wider and the button slightly larger.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Lynn Yu, a former contestant whose blog has sometimes been cited as an\u00a0introduction to the Delcom button, told me Delcom\u2019s product actually didn\u2019t help her buzzer skills in the long run, and the size difference mattered. \u201cI ended up having to change to a two-handed grip,\u201d Yu said. \u201cIt was heavier; it didn\u2019t push down as easily as the Delcom buzzer did. I definitely struggled with the buzzer on the show.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But others believe the button helped. Kyle Daly says he spent a little over a month practicing with the buzzer before his taping of Jeopardy!<\/em> and managed to bring his reaction time down from an average of just under 200 milliseconds to around 70-80 milliseconds. Zach Gozlan says that even though he didn\u2019t win his game, he knows for a fact that the buzzer practice helped him stay in the game against another player who, in his mind, had a knowledge edge over him. Jeopardy!<\/em> releases box scores of each game, so Gozlan was able to see the number of times each contestant buzzed in, among other stats. \u201cAll I really know is I was faster than the two folks I played that day,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Cindy Zhang says the Delcom buzzer helped her ring in first about 68 percent of the time on her first Jeopardy!<\/em> appearance but about 48 percent during her Second Chance appearance once all the contestants had gotten used to Jeopardy!<\/em>\u2019s buzzer. Overall, the consensus seems to be that Delcom\u2019s varying results are at least far better than just clicking a pen to practice.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n 1\/4<\/p>\n 1\/4<\/p>\n Whether or not it can help a future contestant become a Jeopardy!<\/em> champion, the Delcom buzzer is now frequently recommended on Jeopardy! <\/em>blogs, contestant guides, and TikTok videos for anyone wanting to get onto the show. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Like Fritz Holznagel\u2019s manifesto, the Delcom buzzer gained traction through a growing online community of former and prospective contestants who want to help each other win big. The legend of the button will live on in this handheld USB shortcut key \u2014 until someone builds a system even closer to the one on the show.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n[ad_2]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [ad_1] The press of a single button can mean the difference between winning thousands of dollars on national television \u2014 or winning nothing at all. Jeopardy!\u2019s buzzer is arguably the most infamous game show button; over the past 59 years, the \u201csignaling device\u201d has become a behind-the-scenes character of its own. The button on a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5823"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}