I read somewhere that someone has connected their Coke machine to the Internet. Is that true?

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11.7. I read somewhere that someone has connected their Coke machine to the Internet. Is that true?

Actually, folks at several schools, research labs, and other institutions have connected their cola machines to the Internet. The idea is that during a hot afternoon hacking away in the computer lab, the last thing you want is to trudge all the way down the hall just to find out that there's no more Coke/Jolt/Root Beer/or whatever your beverage of choice is. So, clever hackers have connected their drink machines to the network so that they can avoid unsuccessful trips down the hall. Of course, because this is the Internet, we can all eyeball their colas, even if we're half a world away.

Here's a list of a few cola machines that are online. Some of these may not work for you (these things tend to come and go frequently...):

drink@drink.csh.rit.edu
graph@drink.csh.rit.edu
bargraph@coke.elab.cs.cmu.edu
mnm@coke.elab.cs.cmu.edu
coke@cs.wisc.edu
cocacola@columbia.edu
pepsi@columbia.edu

Let's check the cola inventory at the Rochester Institute of Technology (The RIT motto is "We do more after 2 AM than most people do all day!").

$ finger drink@drink.csh.rit.edu
[drink.csh.rit.edu]
CSH Drink Finger Information Server, V0.99 Fri Oct 29 16:32:58 EDT 1993
WARNING: This software doesn't contain any bugs!

MOTD:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Helpful Hints:
                finger info@drink.csh.rit.edu for 'help' type action.

Tue May 18 14:31:46 EDT 1993
        X client support finally added.  To check out 'xdrink' do a
        'finger displayname:0@drink.csh.rit.edu'.  Soon, (if everything
goes
        well (as in, if you give drink.csh.rit.edu permission to use your
        x server (as in xhost +drink.csh.rit.edu))) xdrink will pop up.

        Hopefully, the balance will be $0.00 so that you can't drop
        any drinks, but if it happens not to be, then go ahead and drop
        something... unfortunatly, unless you know where the coke machine
        is, it will just end up being a free drink for someone who is
around
        when it drops.
                                        -Enjoy
                                                CSH Drink Admin
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                         Balance:  $  0.00

                         1) JOLT!!          $ 0.50  Full   (28/44)
                         2) Mountain Dew    $ 0.50  Empty  (0/44)
                         3) Mystery Slot?!  $ 0.50  Empty  (0/44)
                         4) Diet Stuff      $ 0.50  Full   (12/44)
                         5) Coke Classic    $ 0.50  Empty  (0/44)

          Drink   3+ hrs         1-3 hrs         0-1 hrs           Total
          :::::   ::::::         :::::::         :::::::           :::::
        JOLT!!        28               0               0              28
   Mountain Dew        0               0               0               0
 Mystery Slot?!        0               0               0               0
     Diet Stuff       12               0               0              12
   Coke Classic        0               0               0               0

     +------------------------+
     | Computer Science House |
     |      Drink Machine     |
     +----+----+----+----+----+
     | JO | Mo | My | Di | Co |
     | 28 |  0 |  0 | 12 |  0 |
     |$.50|$.50|$.50|$.50|$.50|
     +------------------------+
     |       +----+   +       |
     |       |+--+'   |       |
     |       ||__ |___|       |
     |       |   ||   |       |
     |       |+--+.   |       |
     |       +----+   +       |
     +------------------------+

Note: the truly interested will want to read the RIT Coke Machine FAQ, which is posted monthly to alt.folklore.computers and alt.internet.services. You can also get it via FTP from ftp.csh.rit.edu:/pub/drink/FAQ

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