[ih] AOL in perspective

[the keyboard of geoff goodfellow]

the source files for the Prancing Pony vending machine connected to the DEC
PDP-10 at the Stanford AI lab (SAIL) -- written in SAIL (*.SAI) -- can be
seen at https://saildart.org/[PNY,SYS]/

geoff

On Sun, Sep 7, 2025 at 11:13 AM Noel Chiappa via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

>     > From: Barbara Denny
>
>     > 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://www.cs.cmu.edu/~coke/history_long.txt
>
> Very interesting! Again, a minor correction for the record, here:
>
>     >> This is a list of various coke or other vending machines that are
>     >> accessible via the Internet.
>
> This list appears to omit the 'Prancing Pony' vending machine at SAIL,
> which
> SAIL claims:
>
>
> http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/voy/museum/pictures/AIlab/SailFarewell.html
>
> was "the first computer-controlled vending machine". Given that it was
> originally in the Donald C. Power building, it was indeed fairly early.
> Perhaps 'the first vending machines that was accessible via the ARPANET?'
> :-)
>
> I did a Web search for more about it, but could find almost nothing
> online, including in the SAILDART Prolegomenon:
>
>   https://saildart.org/simple/book/2019.pdf
>
> (Thanks for writing down the history of the CMU one, Clem!)
>
> I can't believe there wasn't a way to interrogate its status remotely, via
> 'finger', although with so little recorded about it...
>
>         Noel
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-- 
Geoff.Goodfellow at iconia.com
living as The Truth is True