[ih] AOL in perspective

[Guy Almes]

Hi Clem and Barbara,
   Both the Coke hack and the CS Cheese Coop were wonderful.
   The Coke hack helped keep our CS students awake during long terminal 
sessions, of course.  The elegance of the hack in allowing one to know 
which column of cokes would be coldest was a wonderful extra.
   And the Cheese Coop probably deserves a high place in the early 
history of e-commerce.  It also permitted students to combine a 
sophisticated taste in cheese with a low budget.
   Many fond memories,
	-- Guy

On 9/5/25 5:35 PM, Clem Cole via Internet-history wrote:
> below
> 
> On Fri, Sep 5, 2025 at 4:25 PM Barbara Denny via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
>>
>> BTW,  in searching for information on cmua,  I found this write-up on the
>> coke machine. I thought people might be interested in reading it if this
>> hasn't been posted before.
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.cs.cmu.edu/*coke/ 
> history_long.txt__;fg!!KwNVnqRv! 
> Bnk2hqMtnYpkjVy90PIb1Ws_ZbPBWwXrncktK4SqouBdKXIR7jry7Jaoe_Mjf42znMf50B6rru79zidkehiRFe5z3j2wCQ$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.cs.cmu.edu/*coke/history_long.txt__;fg!!KwNVnqRv!Bnk2hqMtnYpkjVy90PIb1Ws_ZbPBWwXrncktK4SqouBdKXIR7jry7Jaoe_Mjf42znMf50B6rru79zidkehiRFe5z3j2wCQ$>
> 
> 
> Nice write-up, but it's unfortunate that the history appears to begin in
> 1982 and lacks some context and history from the 1970s, when we had the CS
> Terminal room off the main CS machine room (and the door closer was >>just
> timed<< so could go into the hallway were the machine was, purchase at .25
> a single a cold 12oz coke in a bottle, and still get back into the terminal
> room before it locked and you had to walk around).
> 
> The Coke machine itself, BTW, was privately owned and was
> basically operated by the same folks that ran the CS "Cheese" COOP.   Since
> it was not owned or serviced by the local Coke distributor, it was
> hackable, and they could set our own price. At the time, the University had
> contracts for other machines around campus from a vendor, and they had
> different prices (and selection). Initially, this machine was very much
> under the radar, and only CS and EE people tended to know about it.    The
> key was that it was an early 1960s-style machine salvaged from somewhere
> where it was being discarded.  It was then resurrected (IIRC, they had to
> fix the refrigeration system, but otherwise it worked well mechanically).
> Note there were six buttons and six choices - all being Coke.
> 
> The bottles of Coke itself (along with Cheese) were picked by people
> involved in the COOP.  They were stored with other supplies, such as
> line printer paper.  At the time, one of the jobs of the operators (like
> me) was to refill it.  IIRC, it was Jim Tetter who did the original
> instrumentation (he was undoubtedly part of hacking it), as Jim ran the CS
> hardware lab in the 1970s.  The original instrumentation was to tell the
> operator that it needed to be refilled, IIRC, that was it getting to under
> 30% capacity.  Adding features like sensors to the different columns was
> done early on, because if a column was recently reloaded, users needed to
> know not to use the button for that column, or else risk getting a
> yet-to-be-chilled bottle.
> 
> Also note the Coke machine was connected to the CS Front End (a dedicated
> PDP-11/20 with a ton of CMU "ASLIs - async line interfaces and some DR-IIBs
> to the different systems), which connected the terminals and allowed access
> to CMUA/CMUB/CMUC or C.mmp.  CMUA got the info about the Coke machine via
> the front-end connection [which I seem to remember was "hardwired" to it].
> Later, when the distributed front-end was developed in the 1977/78
> timeframe (originally on Xerox 3M Ethernet), I seem to remember that the
> coke machine was run as part of one of the DFE's LSI-11s.  I left soon
> thereafter, but I would suspect the LSI-11 interface was replaced by what
> is described in that history as being done by John Zsarnay and Mike Kazar
> in 1982 (who clearly took the coke machine interface to the next level  —
> Tetter probably remembers more of this).
> 
> Until the 1980s, when the rest of the world heard about it, it was just
> another hack that proved helpful to all of us.
> 
> Clem
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