Here's a picture of what my cousin's looked like; I was wrong: 8 sides.
http://www.frontiernet.net/~crokinol/gallery/ross4.jpg

I was also wrong about how you send your disks in: they are filliped. Here's a link explaining the differences between carom and crokinole (though it doesn't give the origin of carom), with drawings of the 2 boards:
http://www.frontiernet.net/~crokinol/primer.htm

A quote: Crokinole boards are not carom boards, but some Crokinole boards are Carrom® boards.
Not all carom boards are Carrom® boards, and not all Carrom® boards are carom boards either.
Not all combination game boards are carom/Carrom® boards, but all Carrom® carom boards are combination game boards.