Here's the origin of that - The Teletype Model 28 "stunt box".[1] This was a mechanical state machine, programmable by adding and removing metal levers with tines that could be broken off to encode bit patterns. These were used in early systems where a central computer polled mechanical Teletype machines in the field, and started and stopped their paper tape readers and other devices. Remote stations would punch a query on paper tape and put it in the reader, then wait until the central computer would poll them and read their tape. This was addressable, so many machines could be on the same circuit. Used in 1950s to 1970s, when mainframes were available but small computers were not.

[1] https://www.smecc.org/teleprinters/28stuntbox001.pdf