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The “Only” Coke Machine on the Internet (1998)

cs.cmu.edu

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Re: The “Only” Coke Machine on the Internet (1998)

#31

Post by dsimms »

avuserow wrote: post #27
dsimms wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the port number was a gag, also used to illustrate sessions we did on assigned-numbers and service discovery.

We did use it for various mechmania sessions as the game communication port. During my time, we also had a running joke that in our "spare time", we would implement a telnet server so you could do maintenance to the soda machine. Did the soda machine ever use it for anything at all? I never did find a conclusive answer to that.

It did, but it was totally a toy (since it lacked any authentication of its own). We'd occasionally turn it on in the middle of the night and drop a can behind someone hacking away!

Re: The “Only” Coke Machine on the Internet (1998)

#32

Post by klange »

Qworg wrote: post #28
avuserow wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only time we exploded cans was by freezing or loading incorrectly. Occasionally we had the solenoids fail to fire, but that was solved easily by sshing into the soda machine and asking it to vend again. When I was there, the machine controlling the soda machine was a Linux box running some old Debian with a 2.4 kernel, on VIA or some non-Intel/AMD x86 processor, booting from iSCSI. Thankfully, it was upgraded whe…

We had some random x86, running Linux, in there on a full sized motherboard. It lived in between the front face and the actual refrigeration compartment. We also had a fun little perfboard of 120V relays inside of a clear plastic case we built - the most dangerous part of the machine (which melted down at least once in the first build). Man, memories. =)

When avuserow says "upgraded" he means we "replaced it with a not-much-newer HP desktop running Ubuntu", so it's still a random x86, running Linux, on a full-sized motherboard. It lives outside the case these days, though.

Re: The “Only” Coke Machine on the Internet (1998)

#33

Post by klange »

avuserow wrote: post #26
dsimms wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the coke machine take the swipes from the i-card(I think that's what the id cards are called) like the old one?

It does, and feeds into the same stats database. Unfortunately I can't seem to get to caffeine.acm. I'm unsure how that works these days, since a lot of things were redesigned after I left (including retiring AFS). When I left in 2011, there was a card reader and a touch screen, so you swiped your card, and then selected your choice on the screen. I think it may have also had a random button at one time or another. T…

We had the physical buttons wired up and replaced the touchscreen with a larger (non-touch) LCD panel circa late 2011. We wanted to get some LCD modules to replace the empty panels next to the buttons, but I don't know if they were ever wired up (I know we built them, but I recall there being a major blocking problem).

I'm amazed the thing kept tweeting a year after I graduated.

Re: The “Only” Coke Machine on the Internet (1998)

#34

Post by jbuzbee »

yellowbkpk wrote: post #29

One of my first memories of being on the Internet was visiting Yahoo's "Devices Connected To The Internet" category every day and checking every one of them out. In addition to the coffee pots and soda machines mentioned in the comments here, I spent a lot of time on USC's Telegarden project: http://www.usc.edu/dept/garden/

Yahoo's list was my inspiration to put The World's First Internet Connected Bat House on the Internet back in '95 (20 years? Wow!). It was a big day for me when I made Yahoo's list

The page is still online, with that '95 look but it's been many years since it's been touched.

http://batbox.org/

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