>>>> Lettuce to the Editor <<<<

 Re your article on CMU's famous Internetted Coke machine:

 It was in the vestibule leading to the graduate/employee terminal
 room, behind a locked door (taking the famous X key), lest anyone
 think it was in the one that we mere snot nosed wet-behind-the-ears 
 unworthy-of-respect-let-alone-Cokes non-slave undergrads were
 allowed to use.  (Unless of course we walked behind someone, knew
 someone  inside, found a key, or worked for them.  Me?  I ain't
 sayin'!)  It was filled not by staff but by whoever wanted to, had
 the key to said terminal room, and could strong-arm, er, sweet-talk
 the staff into lending them the key to the room where the cases of
 Coke were kept.  There was, tho, a reward: two Cokes per filling.
 (It was usually a two-person job, thus one Coke each.)  Furthermore,
 the machine would report (and act) empty in each column when it
 really had a few Cokes left (note that this was not a CMU hack, but
 standard Coke-machine behavior), so the fillers got *cold* Cokes.
 And these were genuine SIXTEEN-OUNCE classic-shape bottles, for
 thirty five cents (or at least it did as late as 1986 or so), not
 the "twelve ounce cans for seventy five cents" ripoffs you find at
 bus stations and such. 

 There were ideas floating around to wire other items, such as the
 snack machines on the first floor (this terminal room was on the
 third).  Or even the M&M dispenser that was in the same room!  (One
 April Fool's Day, legend hath it, some prankster filled it with
 Reese's Pieces.  People got used to this - but when it got low 
 someone topped it off with M&Ms again and mixed them well, thus
 creating a concoction I call "Hacker Surprise".)  Most important,
 though, was the proposal to wire the bathrooms on each floor
 (usually one of each gender at each end plus the middle of each
 floor of Science Hall, now called Wean Hall so the former Scientists
 are now Weanies).  Thus, the bleary-eyed 4 AM hackers wouldn't need
 to leave the terminal room (or office) only to discover that of the
 three stalls in the nearest bathroom, two were occupied and one had
 a broken toilet, so you had to either go up two flights or down to
 the other end of this floor.

 Dave Aronson (1:109/120)
 Alexandria, VA.
- - - - - -
Thanks for the update, Dave.  The original article was written based
on an echo conference report on the famous pop dispenser.  Greg has
rather proudly (and at great length) admitted to having once had
possession of one of the mythical 'X' keys that granted access to
that hallowed Shrine for Programmers.
DB                                                              {RAH}
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